La Vista Ajena
by Kurt
Summary: Chapter 19 up! Yes, I'm alive. Clarice Starling tangles with Dr. Lecter's daughter a second time. Sequel to 'Like Father, Like Daughter'.
1. From the Past

                _Author's note: After a bit of a break, I'd been writing this on and off.  With the second chapter close enough to print, I decided to publish.  Here we are, the sequel to 'Like Father, Like Daughter'._

                Clarice Starling began her day as she always did.  It was a calm day, for someone who worked in Behavioral Sciences.  She was tracking a few isolated murders in Tampa for the local police department, trying to determine if there was a link.  Nothing to say definitively either way.  So it was calm and quiet, relatively speaking.  Autopsy reports.  Crime-scene reports.  All low-key and relatively calm.  The murders were average, she thought.  Nothing to suggest the ritualistic aspects of a serial killer. 

                Her phone rang and she picked it up calmly. 

                "Starling," she said automatically.  

                The voice on the other end was male and interested.  

                "Agent Starling?  This is Dr. Raymond Perkins.  I'm the administrator of the Highview Psychiatric Hospital." 

                Clarice had heard of him.  Since the Chesapeake State Asylum had closed all those years ago, the criminally insane were sent to Highview.  It was located outside of Baltimore.  Clarice had been there a few times to interview killers who had been deemed insane.  

                "Hi, Dr. Perkins," she said calmly.  "How can I help you?  I don't think there's anything going on between Behavioral Sciences and your institution."  

                Dr. Perkins's voice dropped a tone or two.  "Well," he said.  "No, it's nothing official.  I'm sort of relaying a request for a favor."  

                Clarice pondered.  "Relaying a request?  Well, what is it?"  

                Dr. Perkins paused. "A patient has been asking to speak to you," he said.  

                Clarice's mouth quirked.  What would a psychiatric patient want with her?  Well, she could see that; psychiatric patients might be delusional. They were in the loony bin for a reason, after all. Maybe the question she meant was why the administrator of the facility had seen fit to relay the patient's request.  

                "A patient of yours?" she asked. 

                "Yes."  

                "May I ask who?" Clarice pressed.  

                She could hear the glottal click as he swallowed.  

                "It's…ahh…it's Alice Pierpont," he said finally.  

                Clarice let out a sigh.  Alice Pierpont.  Hannibal Lecter's daughter.  She was not quite so free of illness as he; she was bipolar and possibly schizophrenic.  They'd diagnosed her as schizophrenic, anyway.   Clarice had her doubts.  Two years ago, she had captured Clarice and caged her, trying to seek out her father.  For a week and change, Clarice had lived in a cage, her life dependent on a madwoman's whims.  

                Now it seemed she wanted Clarice for something.  A _thump _of fear tapped Clarice's gut.  

                "I see," Clarice said.  "What does she want?"  

                Dr. Perkins let out a long sigh.  "She wants you to come and see her," he said.  "She wanted to know if you would help her with something.  I'm sorry, this is all third-hand to me, I don't have more information.  She asked an orderly, who referred it to the nursing supervisor, who in turn referred it to me."  

                Clarice smiled tightly to allay her nerves.  "Dr. Perkins, I'm sure she may want to see me, but let's be honest," she said.  "Alice Pierpont is there for a reason.  She's mentally ill.  I don't know if she's incompetent to stand trial or not, but that's what the court said, and that's what you've been saying at the hearings since then, so I assume she's not exactly in contact with reality.  I have a lot of work to do, and I don't have time for this unless there's a good reason."  

                The doctor coughed.  "I realize that, Agent Starling," he said.  "To tell you the truth…we were kind of wondering if you would be willing to come up here and see what she wanted.  For our sake."  

                "For _your _sake?" Clarice pressed.  "I don't quite understand."  

                "Well," the doctor said, "you see, this is the first time Alice Pierpont has voluntarily spoken in about seven months."  

                Clarice tensed.  "I see," she said archly.  "So you'd like me to see her in order to keep her talking."  

                "It would be helpful in her therapy," the doctor agreed.  "Also, we've been interested in her case since she came here.  There's _definitely _a book's worth of material in her.  Maybe two. Very, very fascinating case, you know. You just don't find cases like hers every day.  Do you publish, Agent Starling?"  

                Clarice closed her eyes and made a moue with her lips.  _So, _she thought, _you want to get your lab rat to talk to you and **that's **why you want me to help.  _

"I publish occasionally," she said.  _Not enough to want to come see Alice Pierpont, _she thought.  Then she found herself feeling guilty.  After all, she had promised Dr. Lecter that she would keep an eye on his errant daughter while she was incarcerated.  The fact that no one at all had heard her make that promise mattered not a whit.  

                _I can't believe the things I do, _she thought.  But dammit, that was the difference between the good guys and the bad.  

                "She's been troubled lately," the doctor said.  "Seeing you would…mean a great deal to her."  

                Clarice cleared her throat.  _I am a goddam fool, _she thought.  _A pure-d god dam idiot.  _

"What does she want from me, Dr. Perkins?"  

                The doctor sighed.  "She asked that I not tell you," he said.  "She wants to ask you herself."

                _Maybe she wants to try and drown me again, _Clarice thought.  No, she doubted the staff would help her in that.  _Maybe she's gonna give me nine more cans of Pringles.  Chick is hardly Miss Sanity, after all. _But she could feel the curiosity and duty tugging at her.  The curiosity was ingrained in her as a profiler; she'd worked _so _hard to get this job.  The duty was exclusively her own.  She'd promised to watch over Alice.  

                Plus, the work she was doing now was only a step or two above puttering.  Alice _was _an interesting case.  The Bureau might get some benefit.   Maybe Alice would agree to do some surveys or something.  At the least, they might come up with something if she ever came to trial.  

And so, after chatting with Crawford and getting the okay, Clarice Starling found herself in her Mustang, heading up the Baltimore-Washington Expressway to where Alice Pierpont was held with the rest of the loonies.  She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror.  

                "Why do I always end up doing this?" she asked her own reflection in the mirror.  "How come I can't be more like Jack Crawford?  He'd just say 'Oh, I'm sorry, I can't' and that would be the end of it.  He wouldn't feel guilty.  He'd go home and sleep like a log over it." 

                Her own eyes in the mirror offered her no answers.  

                "And now I'm talking to myself," she said irritably.  "Maybe they ought to get _me _a padded cell there too." 

                The Mustang made short work of the miles between Quantico and the asylum, and before Clarice really knew it, the prow of the Mustang was aiming at several buildings set far back behind a fence.   She eased up to a guardhouse at the front, where a bored man in a uniform checked her ID and waved her in.  The driveway was long and cracked; it had been many years since it had been paved last.   Clarice parked and checked in at the front desk.  

                The place seemed dilapidated.  Ugly fluorescent lights cast hopeless lights down with an annoying buzz.  The secretary's desk was chipped and well worn.  The secretary herself took Clarice's ID and lifted an elderly black Bell phone.  

                "Dr. Perkins will be right with you," she said calmly, and waved Clarice to a battered chair.  

                It took perhaps ten minutes all told.  A man in a white lab coat approached Clarice and extended his hand.  Clarice took it and smiled perfunctorily.  She studied him.  He was short and thick around the middle.  She figured him for about fifty.  His face was pleasant.  Blue eyes sparkled above a dark beard that she suspected might be dyed.  A passable Tevye, if the lunatic asylum decided to put on a production of _Fiddler on the Roof.  _

                "Agent Starling, good afternoon," he said warmly.  "Thank you so much for coming, especially on such short notice."    

                She smiled.  "So can you tell me what all this is about?" she asked directly.  

                "Mostly, it's what I told you on the phone," he said.  "Her attorney came to come see her yesterday.  She's entitled to speak with him in confidence, you know, so I can't tell you what they talked about."  

                They began to walk down the halls.  The doctor continued speaking.  His voice was jovial.  

                "After that, she seemed somewhat troubled.  She didn't say anything.  That's not that uncommon; she goes for months without speaking.  Then this morning she asked the orderly if she could call you.  Of course, we don't let inmates call their victims directly, so he simply told her no.  She asked him to move things up the line, you know, and it came to me."  

                Clarice sighed.  _Victim.  I'm her victim now, I guess.  _She didn't like the thought.  She was a warrior.  A fighter.  She took up arms and fought the bad guys.  'Victim' was not her preferred label.  Yes, Alice Pierpont had kidnapped her.  Yes, she had starved Clarice and tortured her and held her under strict conditions.  But Clarice didn't want to be thought of as Alice's victim.  She was an FBI agent, a warrior strong and true.  

                "What can you tell me about her?" Clarice asked.  "How has she been?"  

                The doctor shrugged.  "She hasn't been a difficult patient," he said.  "No violence since she came here.  We've tried different medications.  She's been cooperative – she does what she's asked to do."  

                "But you said she doesn't talk," Clarice pointed out.  

                "She doesn't.  She remains mute for months on end.  She'll write notes sometimes, and sometimes she just won't communicate at all."  

                Clarice nodded slowly.  She'd long suspected that Alice was crazy like a fox.  From the week Clarice had spent in her custody, she didn't think Alice was legally insane.  But the doctors here had said she wasn't competent at her hearings.  

                "What kind of notes?" Clarice pressed  "Does she use proper grammar?  Do the notes indicate she's lucid?"  

                Ahead was a set of double doors.  The doctor tapped out a code on a keypad.  With a pneumatic _hiss _the doors opened.  For a moment Clarice pondered on that.  It wasn't quite the same as the Chesapeake asylum: black iron bars had given way to nice double doors.  But the place was no less secure.  

                "It varies, Agent Starling," the doctor said.  "The notes are part of her file.  I'd give you them if I could, but they're confidential, you know."  He sighed.  "Perhaps she might allow you to have some of them.  She seems to want something from you, as near as I can tell."  

                The thought of that made Clarice shudder.  

                "Anyway," the doctor continued, "some of her notes are perfect grammar, perfectly lucid.  That's usually when she wants something."  He grinned.  "It's other times that she doesn't maintain quite that level of clarity.  If you ask her why she won't talk, she'll usually come up with some interesting answers.  A few months ago she said she wasn't talking because the Devil had shoved a cookie down her throat.   I took a look down her throat with a tongue depressor and told her I couldn't see any cookie.  She wrote a note saying to pray for eyes."  

                Clarice thought for a moment about that.  The doctor had been in the same room with her?  That was frightening.  

                "Now what kind of conditions are going to be there for this visit?" she asked.  

                The doctor shrugged.  "There's a visiting room in the maximum security wing," he said.  "Two chairs, bolted to the floor.  A table.  You'll have privacy for the visit, but an orderly will be in the hallway."  

                A chill ran down Clarice's spine.  "Is she…isn't she going to be in restraints?"  

                The doctor looked at her as if restraining a woman who had murdered and tortured had never occurred to him.  

                "Why, no, Agent Starling," he said.  His tone suggested that what she was asking for was unthinkable.  "There were new rules passed a few years ago strictly limiting the use of restraints in psychiatric hospitals.  We're only allowed to restrain a patient who is being violent, and then under strict regulations.  Alice has been well-behaved since she came here."  

                Clarice thought of the crimes Alice had committed and drew in breath sharply.  "You don't restrain her."  

                "We haven't had to," Dr. Perkins replied.  "If you prefer, I suppose we could put her in the padded cell.  That's quite secure, although it's hard to hear through the door.  Are you nervous about being in the same room with her?"  

                Clarice gritted her teeth.  Her mind echoed the question.  _Watsamatta, Starling, ya chicken?  Buck-buck-buck!  _

                "I guess given her history of violence it's cause for concern," she allowed through clenched teeth.  

                "She hasn't been violent since she came here," the doctor repeated, a bit prissily.  "Agent Starling, just about _every _inmate I have on maximum security has a history of violence.  Despite that, most of them get along just fine.  If you'd prefer to have higher security than normal, we'll put Alice in the padded cell and you can talk to her through the door.  There's a microphone installed in it, so you can converse with her."  

                His tone indicated that he thought she was being a wuss, and she hated that.  She gritted her teeth.  _I do not want some pear-shaped psychiatrist in his necktie and his beard thinking I'm scared, _she thought.  For a moment her mind whirled back to Chilton, with the microphone hooked up to the desk she'd sat in.  Did she want him curled over a speaker, listening to her discussion with Alice in some unseen room?  No.  

                "I just want to see what happens if she jumps me," she said.  

                Dr. Perkins shook his head.  "I doubt that," he said.  "There will be two orderlies outside the room.  If she attacks you we'll have her off you quickly."  

                _Yeah, and what if she breaks my jaw or eats my tongue before you do? _she thought.  But no, Alice was not her father.  _Quit being such a scaredy-cat, _she scolded herself.  _Find out what the crazy chick wants.  Maybe she's going to go to trial after all.  Maybe she wants to apologize.  Hell, you don't know.  _

So she accompanied the psychiatrist through a few more locked gates and doors to a final set of doors marked _Women's Maximum-Security.  _A smaller sign advised _All weapons must be checked, _and another warned her that _All visitors must display photo identification to leave ward.  _What if someone forgot her wallet?  Would they make her stay here?  Toss her in a cell and start ramming Thorazine down her gullet?  _Quit it, Clarice.  You were at Chesapeake and that was worse.  _  

                The white-uniformed orderly was expressionless as he took her gun and exchanged it for a cardboard tag with a clip.  She attached it to her lapel and swallowed.  Glancing around indicated she was in the lobby of the maximum-security ward.  The desk behind which the orderly sat was enclosed in bulletproof glass.  Behind him was a long device – a handle with a U shape at the end, used to pin a struggling inmate to the wall.  There was also a straitjacket, neatly folded, a rifle she recognized instantly as a tranquilizer gun, and a set of leather wrist and ankle restraints arranged in a foursquare group of neat tan O's.  

                Clarice found herself wondering if any of those devices had ever been used on Alice Pierpont and forced herself to quit thinking about it.  What did Alice want, anyway?  And why the hell had she simply gotten in the car and driven out here?  

                _Because you said you would and you haven't, _her mind reminded herself.   _Dr. Lecter asked you to keep an eye on her and for two years you haven't.  That's what's driving you here, Clarice old pal, good old-fashioned guilt.  That's why you came here.  Not because of the FBI, not because of Dr. Perkins and his desire to keep his patient talking so he can get a book out of her, and strictly speaking, not even for Alice herself.  You're here because you promised you'd do this and you never did._

"Well, Agent Starling?" Dr. Perkins asked.  "I need to get her.  Will it be the visiting room or the padded cell?"  

                _I am not having an overweight psychiatrist think I'm a pansy, _Clarice thought to herself.  "The visiting room will be fine," she said shortly.  

                "Very well," Dr. Perkins said, and smiled brightly.  "Barney, would you please bring Alice Pierpont down to Visiting Room One and go over the rules with her?"  

                Clarice turned.  Barney?  Yes, indeed, it was the large black nurse.  His hair was a fine steel gray now, but his eyes were just as bright and intelligent as they had been all those years ago. 

                "Barney?" she asked.  

                Barney smiled.  "That's me," he said calmly.  

                "Didn't know you were working here," she said. 

                "You always go back to what you know," he said enigmatically.  "It's not so bad here.  I like it.  I'm on this floor now, with the ladies."  

                She chuckled.  "Tough job," she quipped.  

                "Tougher than you'd think," he said.  "Anyways.  Let me get her settled and then we'll have a chat once you're done."  

                He disappeared down the hallway and past the door at the end of the hall.  Even at this distance, she could hear him speaking.  His voice was calm and collected.  Then again, she supposed, a guy big enough to pick up most people and break them in half probably could afford to be calm.  

                He returned with a figure that he towered over.  Dark hair, pale skin.  A calm face that she remembered.  Alice Pierpont.  Clarice felt herself tense.  How come she hadn't asked for Josh, anyway?  It was Josh she had a thing for.  Barney held her elbow in one massive black hand and calmly steered her into a room on the right.  Her eyes met Clarice's once, and then she disappeared into the room.  

Barney's voice again, issuing from the room.  It was calm and paternal.  She could see how he got along easily with the inmates.  He didn't threaten or get nasty.  He knew his power and didn't need to throw his weight around.  _Now Agent Starling came all the way to see you.  You be nice to her.  I'm gonna be right outside.  You stay in your chair and keep your hands visible, that's all.  We don't want to have to pull out the jacket or the cuffs or anything, so you mind your manners and everything will be just fine.  All right?  _

He emerged a few minutes later.   His small teeth gleamed at her, shockingly white against his dark skin.  A large hand extended out to her and she took it.  His palm was coffee with cream, she noticed absently.  

"Things will be just fine," he said.  "She knows the rules.  She hasn't tried anything since she came here.  But I'll be outside the door, just in case.  If you run into problems, you just yell and we'll be in there like a shot."  

Clarice took a shuddering breath and nodded.  She walked towards the room and found herself feeling somewhat woozy.  Was she really doing this?  Yes, it seemed.  She was.  

She stepped to the door and paused, her toes just barely touching the linoleum.  Then she decided she was being foolish, took another step forward, and closed the door behind her.  The _click _of the lock made her start.  They had locked her in with a lunatic. How…comforting.  At least with Dr. Lecter, she'd had a big plexiglass wall between them.  

 The room was small and rectangular, reminding her of a very short bowling alley.  The walls were white and peeling.  The floor was gray.  One window was on the far wall, covered over with a heavy steel grid.  The room contained only a bare table and two chairs.  The one nearest to the door was empty.  The one behind the table contained Alice Pierpont.  

She appeared to have dropped some weight, Clarice noticed. She wore the white pajamalike uniform issued to the inmates.  It seemed a bit too big on her, as if she had been starved here in captivity.  Her face was thinner.  Her hair and eyes and lips seemed to be the only color in the room.   Clarice thought of Chesapeake and this woman's father and felt her stomach clench hard.  

Alice Pierpont tilted her head and looked emotionlessly at Clarice.  Her hands were on the table where Clarice could see them.  That was comforting, but this _oh-we-trust-her_ bit really sucked as far as reassurance went.  

"Hello, Clarice," she said.  Her voice sounded rusty and clogged.  Her eyes seemed clear and she didn't seem as crazy as she'd been when they moved her to the mental hospital.  Maybe meds were helping.  

"Alice," Clarice said, and sat.  She did not take her eyes off the woman in the chair.  "How are you feeling?"  

Alice shrugged.  "All right," she said disinterestedly.  "I have meds, and psychotherapy, and all that.  Also the TV room.  Everyone likes Jerry Springer.  Ewww."  She wrinkled her nose.  "How is life in the FBI?"  

Clarice nodded slowly, still distrustful.  Alice could lunge over the table and grab her at any time.  How long had it taken Dr. Lecter to break the nurse's jaw and eat her tongue?  Not too goddam long as she recalled.  

"It's fine," she said shortly.  

"How is Josh?" Alice asked.  

Clarice swallowed.  Feeding Alice's obsession with Josh didn't seem like the brightest idea in the world.  She'd sent him some bizarre love letters when she first arrived at the asylum.  What they contained she didn't know; he hadn't wanted to add them to Alice's file.  

"Agent Graham is just fine," she said.  

"They told me I can't write him anymore," Alice said dolorously, as if being confined to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital was only a minor inconvenience compared to not being allowed to contact Agent Joshua Graham.  

"Your doctors are doing what they feel to be right," Clarice parried.  She leaned forward just a bit before halting.  That would put her into Alice's reach.  Even though Alice simply sat in her chair, she was wary.  Alice's hands lay on the table, fluttering like birds just barely asleep.  Clarice stared at her weird left hand for a moment before making herself meet the madwoman's eyes.  

"Okay," Clarice said.  "You didn't ask to see me because you wanted to tell me they won't let you write Josh.  I'm a busy woman, Alice.  What was it you wanted me for?"  

Alice glanced down at the table as it if held some fascinating hieroglyphic that only she could see.  

"You're afraid of me," she said suddenly.  "Why?"  

Clarice stopped.  Her throat worked.  _Because you kidnapped me and locked me in a cage and starved me, _was what she wanted to say.  

"I know what you're capable of," was what she said.  

"I've been good since I came here," Alice observed.  "No fights, no violent behavior."  

"I'm glad to hear that," Clarice said. 

"Would you feel more comfortable if I was in restraints?" Alice asked. 

Clarice paused.  "Maybe," she said.  "You don't have much impulse control.  I've seen it."  _You killed a woman in front of me and nailed her to a cross.  Don't you remember? _No, better not to remind her of her crimes.  

"I've been getting better," Alice said, sounding bizarrely like a little kid.  

Clarice exhaled.  "Glad to hear that," she said.  "Now.  What did you want out of me?  You wanted me here enough to start talking after six months."  

"Seven," Alice corrected, and smiled a lost smile to herself.

"Seven.  What's the deal, Alice?  I came here to see what you wanted.  Now please don't waste my time."  

Alice nodded and looked down.  She cleared her throat and paused for a moment or two.  Her eyes fixed on her hands.  Still on the table, as if chained down there.  Her fingers trembled.  

"I wanted to know if you would help me," she began.  

Clarice's eyes narrowed.  "Help you?  How?"  

Alice's eyes flitted back up to Clarice's.  She cleared her throat again and took a deep breath.  Whatever she said, she was expecting to be turned down.  

"My stepfather died a few days ago," she said.  

Clarice's mouth quirked.  "I'm sorry to hear that," she said neutrally.  

"I wanted to know if I could go to the funeral," Alice continued.

Clarice stopped.  Was Alice that delusional?  She seemed to know where she was.  Clarice studied her cautiously and leaned back, just in case she freaked out.  

"Alice," she began, "that's not something I can do for you.  You'd have to ask your doctors.  And I don't know if they will let you go."  

Alice shook her head.  "There is a furlough program," she explained.  "And I qualify, because I haven't had any behavioral problems since I got here.  The thing is, they won't let me go because I'm maximum security.  So I have to have two orderlies with me.   They don't have the staff to spare."  

Clarice sighed.  "I'm not sure why you think I could help you, though," she hedged.  

Alice's eyes were calm but seemed sad.  "Well," Alice said, "I know that Behavioral Sciences does those surveys.  The FBI has a lot of agents.  And SWAT teams if you're going to be totally paranoid about it."  She glanced down at her feet for a moment before looking back up to Clarice.  "If the FBI took me to the funeral I'd do one of the surveys."  

Clarice blinked her eyes for a moment and thought.  For a moment, voices of the past spoke in her mind.  She was ten, her father newly dead.  Her uncle talking to someone in the next room:  _Yeah, they shot him…I don't know if I ought to let Clarice go to the funeral.  She's pretty broken up over it.  _She'd burst into hysterical tears and run into the room screaming at him.  Losing her father was bad enough.  Being denied the opportunity to say goodbye to him?  That was unconscionable.  

Edgar Morgan II wasn't Alice's father, but he was her stepfather.  From her records, he was as close as she got, emotionally speaking.  Hannibal Lecter might have begotten her, but he was a stranger to her.  

Clarice Starling felt something she hadn't thought she would ever feel:  sympathy for her former captor.  She eyed Alice suspiciously still.  

"Alice, we've never promised anything to anyone who participates in the survey," she said.  "And as I recall, you didn't even _like _your family."  

"That doesn't mean I don't want to pay my respects," Alice said placidly.  "He _was _my stepfather.  He _was _part of my life. Plus, he _was _the best of the lot to me.  My brother is getting a furlough from the state prison he's in.  If he gets to go, why can't I?  He was convicted of rape and murder, you know."  

"Just what did you have in mind?" Clarice asked.  "The FBI is for law enforcement.  We're not a limo service."  

Alice sighed.  "I thought you might be willing to help me, Agent Starling," she said, and her tone seemed laced with regret.  "I thought you might understand.  All I wanted to do was see if you would help me go to my stepfather's funeral, and in return I'd take the survey that I know you do on serial killers.  But if you're not interested, then fine.   If it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask."  

Clarice found herself tensing.  She couldn't tell if Alice was trying to manipulate her or not.  This could be simply an attempt to get out.  Or maybe she wanted no more than she said: to pay her respects.  And why, oh why, oh why, did Clarice find herself feeling sympathy?  _Uh-uh, Clarice, _she told herself.  _No, no, no, no, no.  We are **not **going to feel sorry for a woman who tortured and murdered.  _

"I didn't say that," Clarice said defensively.  

                Alice shrugged.  

                "Well, Alice, the best I can promise you is that I'll talk to Dr. Perkins," Clarice said.  "And I'll do that."  

                "Dr. Perkins won't help," Alice said stonily.  "He only wants to write a book about me."  

                "Then maybe he'd be willing to give you what you want," Clarice parried.  

                Alice shook her head.  "I asked him," she breathed.  "He said he would if he could, but he didn't have the staff."  

                Clarice stopped and took a breath.  "You…you asked him?  Him directly, I mean?" she asked.  

                Alice nodded.

                "When?"  

                Those spooky maroon eyes glanced up at the ceiling as Alice thought.  Clarice studied her carefully.  Alice was stiff in her chair, but there was a good reason for that.  There were orderlies lurking outside who would slam her into the wall if they thought she was up to something.  For her part, Alice kept her hands on the table and her feet on the floor in a manner that made Clarice think of the military.  

                "This morning when he came around for rounds," Alice said easily.  

                Clarice swallowed.  Who was lying?  The psychiatrist or Alice?  It was hard to tell.  Or for that matter maybe Alice was deluded and _thought _she was telling the truth.  But she seemed pretty lucid to Clarice now.  Could she have been that bad this morning?  

                "Alice, what medications do they have you on?" Clarice asked, her eyes narrowing.  

                Alice sighed and looked down at the table.  "Depakote," she said.  "Zoloft sometimes for my down phases.   Sometimes Ativan or haloperidol when they want me to calm down."  

                _You're no more schizophrenic than I am, _Clarice thought.  _Your meds aren't right.  _

                "Are you on anything now?" Clarice pressed.  

                "Ativan," Alice said obligingly.  "Ever since my lawyer told me about my stepfather.  They're afraid of what I might do if I'm not sedated."  A small cold smile crossed her face, reminding Clarice all too much of the Alice of old.  She could feel sweat break out along her back.  Yes, the woman who had kidnapped and tortured and killed was still here.  All the psychotropic drugs and restraints and secure environments had not quite wiped her out.  

                Alice's eyes slid back to Clarice's.  Clarice found herself feeling as she had back in Chesapeake.  Those same maroon eyes scanning her and taking her measure.  The eyes of a nocturnal predator studying its prey.  Dr. Lecter had seen a lot.  How much could Alice see?   

                "Surprising as it seems, that's all I wanted, Agent Starling," Alice said politely.  "I appreciate any help you could give me, but you don't _want _to help me.  You're afraid of me.  I can see it in your posture."  

                "I didn't say that I wouldn't help you," Clarice repeated.  "And I'm not afraid of you."   Her own voice rang flat and untruthful in her ears.  

                "Yes, you'll talk to Dr. Perkins who will say the same thing he already did," Alice said implacably.  "Very well, Agent Starling.  I suppose I should have known.  I thought I'd try, that's all."  Her eyes did not move off Clarice's, but the volume of her voice rose.  "Barney?" she called.  "We're done here.  Thank you."  

                The door clicked open.  Clarice jumped at the sound.  She turned for a moment to see the large black man enter the room. 

                "Barney, it's all right," she said.  

                Barney nodded calmly.  "Of course it is," he said softly.  

                Clarice paused.  Was this really it?  Why did she feel that she didn't want to see this end?  She felt unsettled and nervous and jumpy.  

                "We can keep going, Alice," Clarice said.  

                Alice shrugged.  "I've said what I have to say," she said offhandedly.  "You'll either help me or you won't.  But I'm tired of having to stay in this position in any case.   My arms are getting stiff, and in order to move them I have to end the visit."  Her eyes shifted to Barney.  "House rules."  

                Barney nodded wordlessly.  

                "All right, Alice," Clarice said.  "I can understand that."   She kept an eye on the other woman.  Something was bugging her, and she didn't know what.  

                Barney smiled calmly.  "You have to leave the room first before I can take her out," he said by way of explanation.  

                Clarice sighed.  It seemed she had no control here.  That was part of what was bothering her, she supposed.  The other part came to her after a moment.  It was just _weird _to see Alice behaving normally.  It was weirder to think that she was allowed to roam the halls of this place unrestrained.  She was used to Dr. Lecter, she supposed.  In his case, he was deemed evil and treated as such.  His cell was the only place he had not been restrained.  He had been separated, from her and from everyone with bars and gates and plexiglass barriers.  Had anyone suggested she sit in a locked room with him with only scant air separating them, she'd have run screaming from the room.  But things had changed over the years.  

                But she had to leave first, so she did.  She returned to the lobby and waited.  An odd sort of disquiet came over her.  She found herself thinking about Alice, and her desire to pay her final respects to her stepfather.  That…that was weird because it made sense.  

                Alice didn't claim to have reconciled with her family, or that she even cared terribly much for her stepfather.  She simply wanted to go in recognition of the part he'd played in her life.  Clarice found that easy to believe.  It was just…_weird _to see a killer wanting to do that.  

                There was also the unpleasant harking back to her own past.  If Alice's story was true, there _was _something that cut Clarice in it. Had the hospital's policy simply been that Alice could not leave their grounds, that would have been one thing.  Knowing that the possibility existed, but that mere bureaucracy stood in the way…that made Clarice uncomfortable.  The FBI agent could not quite forget the hurting ten-year-old girl she had once been.  

                Oh well.  Only one way to find out.  Dr. Perkins was returning to the lobby after checking on his charges.  Clarice smiled at him calmly and got his eye.  

                "Hi, Dr. Perkins," she smiled.  

                "Ahhhh, Agent Starling," the psychiatrist said.  "That was…quick.  Was she talking?"  

                Clarice nodded.  "She told me her stepfather died," she began.  

                He nodded his pudgy head.  "Ah yes, I did hear about that," he said calmly.  

                "And she wanted to go to the funeral," Clarice continued.  

The doctor's cheek twitched.  "Unfortunately," he said, "she _is _a maximum security patient."  

Clarice eyed him carefully.  Crazily, she decided that Alice was more believable than her doctor.  

"Is there a furlough program?" she asked directly.  "She said there was."  

The psychiatrist sighed.  "There is," he said.  "Unfortunately, maximum-security patients are required to have two escorts while off the facility grounds.  I don't have the people to spare."  

Clarice nodded slowly, as if she was prosecuting him.  "I see," she said archly.  "Does Alice Pierpont qualify for the furlough program?"  

The psychiatrist looked distinctly uncomfortable.  "She does, yes," he acknowledged.  "She's behaved well enough.  Her therapy hasn't gone well at all, but she has no violent episodes on her record.  But that's not the problem, Agent Starling.  I simply don't have the staff.  Also, the potential negative press from letting her go…," he shook his head.  

Clarice felt her teeth click against each other.  "You're telling me you won't let her say goodbye to her stepfather because you're afraid of the _Tattler_?"  

"Agent Starling, my budget gets cut every year.  I have the same inmates and they all need therapy and security as deemed fit by the courts.  I barely have the personnel to run the place as it is.  And if she were let off the facility grounds…you know how the press is.  I have this entire institution to run."  

On that, he was on safer ground, even if Clarice thought it was skuzzy to hide behind fears of bad press. She let out a sigh of her own.  

_Don't say it, Clarice. Don't, don't, don't.  It's not your problem.  _

"So," she said, "the only reason you're not letting her go is because you don't have the people."  

"Correct," the man agreed. 

"And if you did, then she could go."  

_Clarice, don't you dare say this.  Be like Crawford.  Don't care.  Nope, not gonna say it, not gonna do it.  Not my problem.  It's sad for her and all, but--,_

Those thoughts ran through her head as she heard her own voice speaking.  The thoughts were eminently sensible.  They were right when you came down to it. 

But there were other thoughts and voices in her mind too.  The voice of a frenzied, hurting ten-year-old screaming at her uncle:  _What do you mean, I can't go to the funeral?  He's my daddy and I have to say goodbye!  _There was a calmer but still keen voice.  _If you follow the rules, you ought to be OK.  If the rules say if you behave you can go, and she behaves, she ought to get to go.  Screwing her out of it because of stuff beyond her control is wrong. _And there was a final voice in her mind speaking up in Alice's defense.  A metallic but sophisticated voice, one she knew all too well.  One that had cut her to the quick of her life before. _While you guard the lambs from harm, Clarice, might you add one more to your flock?  She is troubled, yes, but she is alone and imprisoned.  A kind hand or word would mean a great deal, both to her and to me.  _She _had _promised the owner of that voice she would look after Alice.  

Then her own voice was there in her ears, speaking without her volition.  And certainly without her good sense.  Klaxons sounded in her head.  _Bad idea, Clarice, very bad idea, shut your mouth now before you get into trouble.  _But it was already out. 

"Dr. Perkins, what if I took her?" 


	2. Promises Kept

                _Author's note: 'La Vista Ajena' translates more or less as 'the vision of others' or 'other people's sight'.  It was from a play I read in high school called 'En la ardiente oscuridad'. (that in turn means 'In the burning darkness'). _

_                Bueno, entonces, aqui es nuestra agente favorita…._

                _Here again, _Clarice Starling thought.  _Am I really here again?  _

Yes, she was.  The locked double doors had closed behind her.  The same notice to check her weapon hung over the orderly's desk.  And Alice Pierpont was waiting for her in the bare little visiting room.  

                Crawford had seemed relatively calm about the idea.  He'd thought that it would be worth it and simply told her to get somebody big to go along with her.  He'd recommended that Clarice call an agent over from the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team: Agent Robert 'Red' Hemd.  Agent Hemd was known for his size; he would be able to provide muscle if it was necessary.  

                Never a word about how strong Alice was, and nary a word for how dangerous she could be.  _It's not a bad idea, Starling, getting her in the surveys would be interesting.  _That was it.  But she'd come to the conclusion that she could expect no more from him.  

                Josh Graham had a simpler evaluation of the situation.  He thought Clarice was simply off her trolley.  When she'd told him that she was considering taking Alice into federal custody to take her to her stepfather's funeral, his words had been simple if abrupt.  

                "You're _crazy," _he said.  

                "No," she'd told him.  "It's not like I'm setting her free.  She'd be under heavy restraints, and security would be priority number one."  

                "You can if you want to," he had replied.  "I'm not interested in being part of it at _all. _After what she's done…to you and to me…no way.You've got tweety birds flying around your head, is what I think."  

                She hadn't planned on bringing Josh anyway.  Alice seemed to have accepted that she couldn't have him, and kick-starting that obsession was not something Clarice wanted to do.  But his flat lack of sympathy surprised her.  She knew what he'd been through, but even so it surprised her.  

                A call to Agent Hemd had assured that he was available, and he was more willing to help Alice than Josh was.  So here she was.  Clarice stopped at the door and swallowed.  

                Alice was sitting in the same posture she had adopted before.  Hands on the table, feet on the floor, stiff with the knowledge that any unforeseen movement would cause the orderlies to come in and pin her to the wall.  She eyed Clarice wordlessly for a few moments.  Clarice swallowed again and closed the door behind her.  A faint _snick _indicated that she was now locked in with a madwoman.  

                "Hello, Agent Starling," Alice said respectfully.  

                Clarice paused.  "Hello, Alice," she said.  "I did talk to a few people on your behalf."  

                Alice nodded.  From her expression, she expected Clarice to report failure.  "And what happened?" she asked.  

                "Well," Clarice said, "Dr. Perkins is willing to sign you into federal custody for the day.  Specifically, mine.  And I will take you to the funeral." 

                Alice stopped, not expecting her former captive to have agreed to help her.  "Thank you," she said.  "I do appreciate your kindness, Agent Starling."  

                "There are going to be terms," Clarice said.  

                Alice shrugged.  "Of course," she said.  

                "I want your survey completed _before _I take you," Clarice began.  

                "If you'd like that," Alice said.  "I'm not in a position to demand concessions."  

                Clarice nodded.  "You're right," she said briskly.  "You're not.  I also want to go over security for this furlough of yours."  Alice was being almost _too _calm about all this.  Maybe she just understood that Clarice had the upper hand and she had no cards at all to play.  

                So why did Clarice still feel uneasy? 

                "All right," Alice said, still respectful as ever. 

                "You will be in restraints during the entire time," Clarice explained.  "Handcuffs attached to a belly chain around your waist.  I'll put them on you before I take you off the ward, and they will stay on until I bring you back to this ward."  

                Alice didn't seem particularly affected by it.  "That's actually standard practice here in maximum security," she remarked.  "Am I going to be allowed to wear civilian clothes to this, or do I have to wear these pajamas?"   

                Clarice nodded slowly.  Seeing Alice calm and compliant was putting her off her speed.   She felt like she wasn't in control, even though Alice was apparently agreeable to everything she asked.  

                "You can wear civilian clothes," Clarice said.  "_I _will pick them out for you and bring them there.  You won't see them before I bring them to you.  Give me your sizes."  

                Alice nodded.  "I'll also give you my attorney's address," she said in a businesslike tone.  "He can reimburse you for the expense."  

                "Also," Clarice said, "before you go anywhere or I give you any clothing at all, you will be strip-searched by a nurse here.  I may search you myself before we go.  Once you are in my custody, I will do whatever I feel to be necessary to ensure that this goes smoothly.  You are to keep your hands where I can see them at all times.  If I feel it is necessary to search you, I will.  If I feel it is necessary to restrain you in other means, I will do that.  While you are at the funeral you are not to approach or speak to anyone without my express prior permission.  There will be myself and another agent there with you.  One of us will have our hand on your arm at all times.  I will take you directly there and directly back.  If at any time you try anything…anything at _all_…I will obtain control over you by whatever means necessary and bring you back here.  Do you understand me?"  

                Alice considered that for a moment.  "Yes, Agent Starling, I understand, and I'll comply with your rules," she said.  

                "Also," Clarice said, "you'll be sedated during your trip."  

                That, at least, seemed to surprise Alice.  She frowned thoughtfully and looked up at Starling.  She _seemed _like she didn't understand or wanted to object, but didn't want to upset Clarice.  

                "Well," Alice said, "how am I supposed to go to the funeral if I'm going to sleep through it?"  

                Clarice's eyes narrowed.  According to Alice's records, she was an RN.  She should know the difference.  Or perhaps she was simply confused; after all, she had been imprisoned for two years. 

                "You won't be asleep," she said sharply.  "You'll be sedated, not tranquilized.  You'll be awake, but it'll slow you down.  I know what you're capable of, Alice.  I know how strong you are."  She leaned forward.  Her throat worked.  

                "I want you to understand something here, Alice.  I will do this favor for you.  I am doing it out of empathy.  _Not weakness.  Don't confuse the two, Alice.  I will let you say goodbye to your stepfather, but I will __not allow security to lapse around you, and I will __not forget what you are."  _

                Alice blinked a bit, and Clarice realized she'd been more vituperative than she meant to be.  Well, hell.  Alice was frightening.  Alice had done horrible things, and done some of them to her.  Letting Alice out of the secure environment she was held in had to be done _extremely carefully.  _

                "And what am I, Agent Starling?" Alice asked quizzically.  

                Clarice bit her tongue before answering.  She stared at the other woman for a long moment.  The first words – _a monster _– that rose to her mind did not seem appropriate to say.  

                "Dangerous," Clarice said finally.  

                Alice nodded slowly.  "Very well, Agent Starling," she said.  "I'll comply with your conditions.   Leave the survey on the table, I'll take it when you leave."  

                Clarice took the papers out of her briefcase and left them on the table.  She wasn't surprised when Alice made no move to take them.  Those were the rules.  The door clicked open behind her and she retreated to the lobby.  

                There, she got her stuff back and took a deep breath.  Her heart was pounding.  Why did she still feel so nervous about this?  When a hand fell on her shoulder, she almost screamed with electric tension.  

                Barney stood there calmly, a large ebony rock.  His features cracked in a smile.  In one hand he held a piece of paper, shockingly white against his dark skin.  He gave it to her.  

                "She gave me this to give to you," he said.  

                Clarice opened the paper and glanced at it.  It contained Alice's dress sizes and the name and address of her attorney.  Just what Clarice had asked her for, that was all.  No need to freak.  

                Under that was a small note. 

                _I do thank you for your consideration, Agent Starling.  I was told you wouldn't let me down. _

_                -Alice Pierpont _

…

                Two days later, Clarice returned to the asylum for what she hoped would be the final time.  Once again, she was escorted through the halls to the women's maximum-security ward.   This time, however, things were different.  This time, she felt more in control.  

                Accompanying her was Agent Hemd.  He would've made just about anyone feel confident, she thought.  He was six foot eight, and packed with muscle.  Even though his clothing was soberly cut, he seemed to explode out of his suit.  His neck looked like it was as thick as Clarice's waist.  If Alice Pierpont decided to try being oppositional, Agent Hemd would be able to pick her up, break her in half, and put the pieces in the back seat of the prowl car.  

                So she walked on with her giant through the hospital to the maximum-security ward.  This time, Alice was not in the visiting room.  Dr. Perkins had put her in a holding cell near the orderly's desk for her. There, she would wait for Clarice to arrive.  

                In one hand, Clarice had a shopping bag.  She'd picked up appropriate clothing for Alice at a department store.  A black dress, tights, shoes, and underwear.  Nothing in there Alice could use to make a handcuff key in there.  She'd gone over the clothing three times, reminding herself that Alice couldn't put anything in there.  She was locked up at the asylum.  Nonetheless, Clarice had checked it anyway, just in case Alice had teleported herself to Clarice's duplex, hidden a few things in the clothing intended for her, and teleported herself back.  A handcuff key, perhaps, or a hacksaw.  Or maybe a harpoon.  Clarice would not put it past her.  But the clothing was as innocent as the day before when she'd bought it.  

                Agent Hemd accompanied her onto the women's maximum-security ward, and it was there she made him wait by the orderly's desk.  This next part she would do herself.  Alice didn't need to be subjected to a strip search with Agent Hemd watching.  Clarice could show her at least _that _much consideration.  

                The door to the padded cell was heavy steel.  A smaller door provided a peephole that could be opened and closed.  Clarice opened it, looked inside, closed her eyes, and slipped inside as quietly as she could.  This was what she had asked for, but this was not how she had pictured it.  

                A nurse stood with her back to Clarice.  Alice Pierpont stood in front of her.  Her back, too, was to Clarice.  She stood facing the padded wall of the cell.  Over her head was a barred window.  Her wrists were cuffed overhead to one of the bars.  On her ankles she wore thick leather restraints that were attached to rings in the wall with stout canvas straps.  She wore a paper hospital gown, and the edges had come apart at the back.  

                The nurse glanced up at Clarice calmly.  "Oh," she said.  "I didn't realize you were here."  

                "I'm sorry," Clarice said.  "I didn't mean to disturb.  You about done?"  

                "Yes, I was just finishing up," the nurse said. 

                "Agent Starling," Alice said, still facing away.  "Good morning.  Are you going to search me yourself?"  Her voice sounded somewhat strained.   

                Clarice paused. The nurse had just done it.  Then again, Alice was sly.  And after all, Clarice was not unmindful that a male nurse had examined Dr. Lecter shortly before his escape, too.  Perhaps better safe than sorry.  

                "I'll have a look," Clarice said, and walked up to the bound woman, feeling a tremor.  "Have you been behaving yourself?"  

                "Yes," Alice said, and there was something odd about her voice again.  "Ask the nurse."  Clarice saw the muscles of Alice's shoulders tense as she approached.  Alice paused a moment and then said, "Really, I'd rather you got this over with.  This position is uncomfortable."  

                Clarice turned to the nurse and spoke in a hushed aside.  "Did you just pat her down, or…?"  

                The nurse shook her head.  "Body cavities are both checked," she said in a quiet tone that would allow Alice the dignity of it not carrying out of the room.  "She's clean, Agent Starling."

                Clarice felt her stomach lurch a bit and wondered if she was being too paranoid.  She didn't want to duplicate what the nurse had already done.  "Did you check her mouth?"  

                The nurse's mouth made an O of guilty surprise.  "Well…no, I didn't."  

                Clarice observed her captive calmly.  "All right, then," she said.  "I'm not going to pat you down, Alice.  Turn around."  

                Alice's shoulders rose and fell.  "I _can't turn around, Agent Starling," she said deliberately.  "My feet are tied to the wall."_

                Clarice glanced down and observed the heavy straps confining Alice's ankles to the rings set in the wall.    She didn't like the idea of releasing Alice.  In her head, she knew it was silly.  Alice had behaved herself twice in previous visits.  Yet still, her hands trembled at the thought of letting Alice free.  

                _You're being stupid, she told herself.  _She's still tied to the bars, for God's sake.  __

Then something else hit her.  Alice had been unrestrained before, and nothing had happened.  Why go through all this rigmarole now?  

                _Because before she wasn't being strip-searched, she told herself.  __They wanted to make sure she minded her manners.   _

But the sheer fact of the matter was that Alice _couldn't _turn around as things stood, so Clarice carefully stood and squatted.  The heavy rasp of the canvas straps echoed in her ears.  Once that was done, she allowed Alice a little bit of slack in the strap binding her wrists to the bars so that she could turn around without having her hands free.  

                Carefully, Clarice stepped back.  

                "Turn around," she said commandingly.  Alice complied.  Clarice's heart gave a nasty knock in her chest.  

                Why Alice's voice had sounded muffled before was clear, now.  She wore a strong plastic mask covering her lower face.  Above the edge of the mask, her maroon eyes focused on Clarice with an expression of resignation, as if this was all _quite _unreasonable.  The black leather straps had blended into her black hair, and so Clarice had not recognized it at first.

                Maroon eyes watching her calmly over a mask.  Lips confined behind bars.  Clarice closed her eyes and felt memories stir up like old silt on the bottom of her mind.   

                "Looks familiar, doesn't it?" Alice asked quizzically.  "Dr. Perkins's orders.  He was afraid I wouldn't care for the strip search.  He also thought it would make you_ feel more comfortable being around me."    _

                _Well fuck off, Perkins, Clarice thought.  She shook her head.  "No," she said, and accepted a pair of gloves from the nurse.  "I never asked him for anything like this.  I'm gonna have a look in your mouth, now."  _

                She would have to take the mask off.  For a moment Clarice trembled.  _Quit being such a pansy, will you?  It wasn't like Alice was going to bite her.  After all, if Alice misbehaved, then Alice got slammed back in her cell.  Still, the thought of having her forearms so close to Alice's face was unnerving.  _

                But she wasn't going to be able to check Alice's mouth without doing it, so she screwed up her courage and approached the bound woman.  For her part, Alice did not move and let her unstrap and remove the mask as calm as you please.  She attempted to rub her face against her upper arm.  

                "That thing is _horrible _to wear," she said.  "All right, Agent Starling.  Do what you need to."  She opened her mouth compliantly.  For a moment Clarice wondered if she shouldn't get a mouthpiece or a wooden peg or something to jam between Alice's molars.  Having her fingers in Alice's mouth was not something she thought she would ever do.  Images of Alice biting her fingers off arose in her mind.  

                "If you bite me," Clarice warned, "you'll regret it."  

                Alice sighed.  "If I bite you, you'll shoot me," she pointed out.  "I'm tied to the wall.  You've got a gun.  Agent Starling, give me credit for brains here."  

                Clarice _didn't _have her gun, but it seemed Alice didn't know that.  She reached up and took Alice's jaw in her left hand.  Staring into Alice's mouth revealed nothing other than tongue and teeth.  She steeled her courage as she raised her gloved right hand.  

                _Just do it, she wants to go to her stepfather's funeral, she thought.  Then her fingers were in Alice's mouth, sliding around between cheek and gum.  Nothing there.  She felt under Alice's tongue.  Nothing there either.  She pulled her hand back and snapped off the glove, feeling adrenalin rush through her system.  Her heart was pounding hard.  _

                _See?  Was that so bad?  _

"All right," Clarice said briskly.  She took the clothing out of the bag and arranged it on the floor.  Then she slid the buckle on the canvas strap attaching Alice's wrist restraints to the bar down enough to where Alice could reach it.  

                "I'm going to close the door now," she said.  "Get those off and get dressed.  Once you're dressed I'll put the cuffs on you and take you out."  

                "All right," Alice said agreeably.  Clarice left the room and closed the door.  She shut the peephole, too, so that Alice didn't have to be watched while she changed.  Perhaps ten minutes later, the food slot pushed open, revealing the restraints and straps neatly coiled.  Clarice took a breath and called Agent Hemd up to the cell door.  In one hand, he had a pair of handcuffs attached to a long steel chain.  

                Opening the door revealed Alice Pierpont in the black dress Clarice had picked out for her.  She stood in the middle of the room, waiting calmly.  Her head tracked up and her eyes widened at the sight of Agent Hemd's large form.  Clarice was dwarfed by comparison.   So was Alice.  

                Clarice found she liked that.

                "Good morning.  My name is Agent Robert Hemd," Agent Hemd said.  His voice was bass and deep.  From the look on Alice's face, she might have expected his first words to be _Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of a psychiatric inmate.   _

                "Hello, Agent Hemd," she said respectfully.  

                "I want you to put your hands out now," he said gently.  Alice did so with some trepidation, as if she expected him to rip them off and perhaps eat them.  Instead, he simply locked the cuffs on her and then told her to turn around.  When she did, the large man fastened the belly chain around her waist.   Then he took her arm and gently tugged her forward out of the cell.  

                At the lobby, Barney was waiting with a pill cup and some water.  Even he looked up at Agent Hemd.  Clarice found it amusing; Barney rarely had to look up at anyone.  He offered Alice the pill and held the cup for her.  

                "Now you behave yourself," he admonished gently.  "I'm glad you got to go."  To Clarice he held out a clipboard.  "Just sign there, Agent Starling, and she's all yours.  That's Stelazine I just gave her.  It'll keep her calm."

                Clarice raised her eyebrows.  Stelazine was strong stuff.  All the same, that was better, perhaps.  She'd just have to compensate for the fact that Alice would be in la-la land until it wore off.  She signed the form and accepted legal custody of Alice Pierpont. 

                "That would keep the Middle East calm, Barney," she quipped, and then took her prisoner out the door. 

                Herding Alice out to the car went without incident, although Clarice had to show her paperwork indicating that Alice was her prisoner at a few checkpoints.  That was comforting, though.  She liked the idea that they were serious about security.  Once outside, Alice stopped and turned her face up to the sun, enjoying the sunshine.  

                Clarice got her in the car.  When Hemd got in the passenger side, the springs of the big Crown Victoria groaned noticeably.  He grinned with embarrassment.  Clarice smiled calmly at him and glanced at Alice in the rearview.  The tranquilizer had begun to kick in, and Dr. Lecter's daughter looked pretty stoned.  

                The ride out was quiet, and Alice simply watched the scenery from behind the prisoner screen.  Clarice could see her working her jaw and occasionally shifting her position in the back seat.   She didn't speak, but that wasn't a surprise to Clarice.  

                The Episcopalian church in which Edgar Morgan II's funeral was being held was in the middle of Baltimore.  Clarice stared at it and found it vaguely ostentatious.  It was large and ornate, resembling a fortress.  She parked the car under a tree and set about getting her prisoner out of the car.  Hemd was nearby to provide backup.  

                Alice swayed noticeably when Clarice pulled her out of the car.   Her eyes looked half-lidded and sleepy.  The two women stood face-to-face, captor and captive, roles swapped now.  Clarice took her prisoner's arm and brought her through the parking lot.  The doors of the church were absurdly large and thick.  Clarice pushed the door open and let Alice through.  

                A fair amount of people had shown up, thronging the large church.  Edgar Morgan was well known and popular, apparently.  Clarice steered Alice to a pew in the back and sat her down between herself and Hemd.  She glanced over and saw two uniformed officers sitting nearby with a young man in a suit.  He, too, wore handcuffs.  He glanced over at Alice and grinned a hard grin. 

                "Hey, sis," he said.  "Didn't think you were going to make it." 

                Alice looked over druggedly at him.  "Eddie," she said softly.  "Hi." 

                _Oh boy, Clarice thought.  _That must be her brother.  The convicted felon and the psych patient.  What a wonderful family.  _She decided not to remind Alice that she was supposed to ask before talking to anybody; Alice was too doped up to remember, and Clarice wasn't enough of a martinet to care if Alice said hello to her brother or not._

                "Mom's up there," he said, and jerked his head.  

                Alice shrugged.

                Clarice leaned in close to Alice.  "Do you want to say hello to your mother?" she asked.  

                Alice blinked and thought for a moment.   "No," she said shortly.  

                At the head of the church stood a blonde woman.  Her dress, coiffure, and manner all shouted _Money!  She was greeting people as they came up to offer their condolences.  To Clarice, she seemed more like a bad starlet playing a role than a grieving wife.  _

Her eyes floated back to her offspring, both cuffed and guarded, and a sour expression crossed her face.  She excused herself from the person she was talking to.  Her heels rattled an angry staccato against the wooden floor as she proceeded down the hallway.  She glared openly at Clarice.  Yes, this was definitely Jane Morgan.  

"What is…_that…doing here?" she asked.  Hostility dripped from her tone.  Clarice smiled.  Better to kill them with kindness.  _

"Hello, Mrs. Morgan," Clarice said, and offered her hand.  "I'm Special Agent Clarice Starling.  Alice requested to come to the funeral to pay her respects."  

Jane Morgan ignored Clarice's hand.  She eyed her coldly, paying no heed to her daughter.  "I don't want her here," she snapped.  "Get her out.  He wasn't even her father, anyway."  

Clarice gritted her teeth.  "Mrs. Morgan," she said tactfully, "my orders are to bring her here for the funeral and then return her to the hospital."  

"Well, I'm giving you new orders," Jane Morgan announced.  "Get her _out_ of here."  

Clarice sighed and found herself not at all surprised that Alice had ended up turning out the way she had.  This blonde harridan was quite a handful.  

"I don't take orders from you, Mrs. Morgan," she said firmly.  

The woman's vapid, pretty face dropped open in an expression of shock.  "Do you know who I _am?"  _

"Yes, I do," Clarice said calmly.  "You are Jane Pierpont Morgan. You're a widow here and I do feel for your loss.  But you are not authorized to give me orders, and frankly put, Mrs. Morgan, you don't need to treat your daughter this way."  

"Get out," the other woman hissed.  "Get out and take that _thing back to the loony bin with you."  _

Clarice sighed.  "I'm not going to do that," she said, enjoying privately the chance to tell Jane Pierpont Morgan 'no'.  It seemed she didn't like the idea.  The blonde woman shoved past Clarice and raised her right hand to strike her daughter.  Alice flinched away from her and flexed her hands.  

_Okay, _Clarice Starling thought, _you have just hit my official E goddamn nuff point, Frau Übersturmführer Morgan..   _

She reached out and grabbed Jane Morgan's wrist, twisting it down firmly.  The other woman might be a bitch, but she didn't know how to fight worth shit.  Clarice pivoted easily, bending the other woman's arm behind her back and forcing her over the back of the pew.  

"Mrs. Morgan," Clarice said, still dead calm and not missing a beat, "I need you to listen to me now.  It's not my place to tell you how to deal with your daughter.  It _is my place to keep an eye on her while she's here.  Now you listen to me.  Alice is in restraints and no danger to anyone.  She is in my care and custody and I am responsible for her.  If you try again to shove past me and strike your daughter, I will arrest you.  I will charge you with aggravated assault, interfering with the custody of a committed person, and assault on a federal officer.  After I do that, I will see to it that a copy of the arrest affidavit, along with your mug shots and fingerprints, are given to the Baltimore __Sun and the _National Tattler.  _I doubt that will impress your friends on the A-list.  Do you understand me, Mrs. Morgan?  I'd like a reply."  _

The woman let out a furious, shocked noise and tried to twist her arm.  Clarice held on firmly.  Finally, Jane Morgan let out a hiss and said, "Fine."  

Clarice released her and stared her down with no fear.  

                 "You do realize I'll be pursuing this matter," Jane Morgan said.   "I _know people, you know."  _

                "You do what you feel to be right, Mrs. Morgan," Clarice said.  "I will do the same.  Now, if you have nothing pleasant to say to your daughter, I'll ask you to leave her be." 

                "I hope you don't think I'm going to pay your fees for bringing her here," Jane Morgan spat.  "I did _not authorize bringing that monster here."  _

                Clarice sighed.  "I am not charging a fee," she said.  "You won't be expected to pay a dime, Mrs. Morgan."  

                "Good.  Because you won't get a dime, _Agent _Starling."  The firm, angry click of heels announced that Clarice was no longer welcome in the august presence of the wealthy woman.  Clarice sighed.  Hemd grinned.  

                "Well, that went well," he quipped.  

                Clarice closed her eyes.  She hated stuff like that, but she wasn't particularly worried about the other woman threatening here.  Jane Morgan's connections were in business, not government.   

                A few seats down the pew, Eddie Morgan shifted his chained ankles.  "Mom never did like Alice," he said casually.  "Cause of who her father is."  

                "Shut up, Morgan," one of his guards said.   

                Alice let out a sigh.  "That," she said in a somewhat thick tone, "is why I didn't want to say hello to her."  

                Clarice nodded.  "It's all right," she said soothingly, even though Alice was far too doped up to get upset over it.  "Is there anyone you _do _want to talk to?"  

                Alice pondered that through the thick Stelazine haze she was in.  "Not really," she said after a moment.  Clarice sighed and shrugged.  Perhaps that was better.  

                The rest of the funeral went relatively calmly.  One older woman came over and introduced herself as the grandmother of the two.  Clarice let her hug her granddaughter.  Alice simply accepted the hug and stared blankly, as if she wasn't completely sure what was going on.  When it came time to file past the body, Alice didn't break down or cry.  She simply touched the body's hand and closed her eyes.  

                "I'm sorry," she told the corpse.  "You were decent to me, and you had it pretty rough."  After that, she didn't put up a fuss when Clarice and her giant led her back to her seat for the end of the funeral.  Once the eulogy had been read and all was said and done, Clarice herded her out to the car for the gravesite service.  

                That was short and to the point.  A knot of people stood around, watching the earthly remains of Edgar Morgan II lowered into the ground in a ten-thousand-dollar coffin.  Clarice kept Alice at the back of the crowd, and things seemed to work out just fine.  Other than a nuclear-scale glare from the harridan who had given birth to the two kids in chains, the funeral was uneventful.

                Alice was quiet as Clarice got her back in the car.  She glanced around for a bit, working her jaw.  Clarice got the idea she was sadder about returning to the asylum than she was about her stepfather.  But she didn't fuss when Clarice put her in the back.  She simply stared at her feet as the big Crown Victoria pulled out of the cemetery and picked up the highway.  In twenty minutes they were pulling off at the exit for the asylum.  

                The gate guard waved them in, and Alice's shoulders heaved at the sight of the heavy cyclone fencing shutting off the facility from the rest of the world.  Clarice tensed.  If she was going to freak, now might be the time.  

                "Thank you for taking me, Agent Starling," Alice said formally.  Clarice piloted the car to the parking lot.  There, she noticed a young black woman and a large man waiting.  The man wore scrubs, and the woman wore a lab coat over her dress.  When they saw the car, they began walking towards it.  Her eyebrows rose.  

                The young black woman stuck out her hand.  She was quite pretty, Clarice thought.  She was about Clarice's own height.  Her skin was an attractive shade of _café au lait.  _Her features were fine and her hair cut short to her skull.  A pair of large glasses sat atop her face.  

                "Hi," she said calmly.  "I'm Dr. Mansour.  This is Bobby, one of our orderlies.  Dr. Perkins sent me down here to get Alice back in our custody.  Could you take the handcuffs off her, please?"  

                Clarice frowned.  "Out here?  Shouldn't she be back on her ward before I do that?"  

                "Dr. Perkins sent me down here and told me to get Alice back in our custody as soon as possible," the woman said smoothly.  "He said you'd had your hands full with Alice and that we should transfer her back ASAP.  I've got Bobby here to make sure things go smoothly."  

                _Well, fuck Perkins once again, _Clarice thought.  "Actually, she hasn't been a problem," she said.  "Good as gold, in fact."  

                "Very well," Dr. Mansour said, smiling.  "Now, just take the cuffs off her, please."  

                Agent Hemd frowned himself.  But if that was all they wanted, then they could have their patient back.  Clarice nodded at him after a moment.  He set about unfastening Alice's restraints.  The orderly ambled over to him to back him up in case.  Dr. Mansour handed Clarice a clipboard.  

                "Sign there, please, and we'll take her off your hands," she said lightly.

                Clarice took the clipboard and reached in her pocket for a pen.  _Oh, maybe that asshole Perkins just thinks I'm scared of Alice, _she thought.  

                Dr. Mansour reached for something in her lab coat.  Suddenly, her entire face changed.  She went from easy and relaxing to determined and stony in a heartbeat.  

                "_Now," _she said.  

                It happened so quickly Clarice did not even know it until it was too late.  On the other side of the car, the blocky orderly plucked a pistol from the back of his waistband and shot Agent Robert Hemd.  The young black woman drew a flat automatic from her own belt and aimed it at Clarice.  

                Almost instantly, Clarice heard the report and reacted.  Her hands were busy with the clipboard and she dropped it almost immediately.  But even that took a second or two, and it was a second she didn't have.  

                Clarice groped for her own gun, but the young woman's gun was already out and aiming at her.  Across the car, the orderly fired another bullet into Agent Hemd's body.  A look of shock and horror came over her face even as her fingers settled around the holstered .45 and began to draw it smoothly.  But the bore of the young woman's gun was pointed at her.  

                A spurt of flame came from the barrel, and then something smacked Clarice hard and divorced her from her body.  She could feel her knees going.  Her brain screamed at them to get up, but the lines seemed to be down.  Her knees would not obey her brain's commands.  

                The young black woman loomed over Clarice like a sexton about to fill in a grave.  She knew she had to move, but now it was her entire body that refused to listen. It didn't hurt, but there was a feeling of tremendous shock and power.  Everything felt swimmy and far away.  There was a heavy weight on her chest and it was all she could do to breathe.  

                Then the young woman aimed her weapon and shot Clarice Starling two more times. 


	3. Escape

                Clarice could barely move.  Her arms and legs were offline.  She could move her head back and forth, but that was it.  An invisible heavy weight pressed her chest, as if she was a witch on trial ordered to plead.  

                Above her, the young black woman looked down at her.  The muzzle of her gun loomed over Clarice.  The black woman's expression was curiously calm, as if this was all according to plan.  Clarice couldn't feel her gun in her hand.  For that matter, she couldn't feel her hand, or her arm for that matter.  She closed her eyes and prepared to die.  

                The orderly came over to Clarice's side of the car.  Alice Pierpont was with him, blinking druggedly.  She observed the young black woman calmly.  From the look on her face that Clarice could see, she appeared to recognize the girl.  

                "Teek," she said.  "Teek, whatcha doing?"  

                "Finishing the job," the other woman replied.  

                Alice shook her head.  "No, don't," she said slowly.  "She was…she helped me.  Let her live.  Let's just…can we go now?"  

                The black girl's face twisted into consternation.  She looked over at Alice, weighing something in her mind.  

                "Okay," she said.  "Over there."  She kicked at something near Clarice, and the sound of metal skirring across pavement entered Clarice's consciousness.  Clarice's .45, veteran of so many fights, skittered under the car where Clarice could not get it.  She was down and unarmed and helpless.   It had been no more than one minute since the gunfight.  

                "Girl, you got to get _moving," _the black girl added.  She frowned at Alice.  "Like now."  

                Obediently, Alice Pierpont began to walk.  

                "Faster," the girl urged.  For her own amusement, she spoke with an exaggerated Southern accent.  "C'mon now, Miss Alice, you gits in de car and we's gonna drive you way.  Ah's brings you anothah mint julep.  Yous can drink it out on the verandah where it be a mite coolah."  She crossed around the car and grabbed Alice's arm.  

                Clarice tried to turn her head and watch where they were going.  She could only see the tires of her big Crown Victoria.  Already, she could hear voices approaching from the hospital proper.  She could hear doors open and then the metallic sliding sound of a sliding door.  

                _A van, _she thought dazedly.  Her chest was beginning to hurt mightily now and she gasped.  An engine roared to life and drove away.  

                How had all this happened?  All Clarice had wanted to do was show a bit of empathy.  She'd wanted to do a good thing.  Now she'd been paid back for that by lying here in a parking lot, possibly dying.  Maybe she was paralyzed.  Maybe she would die.   

                It seemed like years before there were faces over her, staring down at her as if not understanding what was going on.  _Oh my, what happened?  That's the FBI agent who took Alice Pierpont…where is she?  Oh my God, we have an escape.  _

Clarice heard gunshots from far away and clamped her eyes shut.  She'd be fired for this, if she lived.  But hardly any of that seemed to matter. The voices over her were fading in and out.  Then everything whirled away into a pool of black, taking Clarice Starling far away. 

                …

                Alice worked her jaw in the back of the van.  Her friend crouched over her.  The guy drove.  She was still pretty dopey from the Stelazine, but she understood better now what was happening.  She smiled calmly.  The idea of the gate guard occurred to her, but they had to have some way around that.  

                "Teek, what are you doing?" she asked drowsily.  

                Chatiqua Miller put her hands on Alice's shoulders and smiled calmly.  The gate lay ahead.  

                "Getting you _out _of here," she said.  "It's been a long time.  You look pretty zonked, girl."  

                Alice smiled.  "They doped me," she said.  

                "We're approaching the gate," the blocky man in scrubs behind the wheel said.  

                "You know your mark," Chatiqua reminded him.  "Ready….aaaaaand…._action!"  _

The van slewed to a stop at the guardhouse.  A middle-aged man in a uniform sat desultorily behind a glass pane.  Without missing a beat, the man behind the wheel lifted his pistol and fired once.  The glass was not bulletproof, and the guard fell dead without a word.  Chatiqua opened the sliding door of the van and reached into the shattered window.  She smacked a button and the gate began to open.  As she jumped back in the van and slammed the door, it began to move again.  

                "You killed the gate guard," Alice said, far too calmly.  

                "No.  I just _tickled _him to death.  Alice, girl, don't tell me you've gone _soft."  _

"Poor gate guard," Alice said dolefully.  "I'd heard of him.  Bob the gate guard."  

                "Bob the gate guard wasn't gonna let us out," Chatiqua said dismissively.  "Had to be done."  

                The van turned out of the driveway of the psychiatric hospital and onto the main road.  For a few minutes it drove at a high rate of speed.  There was little traffic.  Then it pulled up behind an abandoned Ford Taurus.  Chatiqua grabbed her friend and steered her into the back seat of the car.   She did not seem concerned at all to abandon the van.   

                "C'mon," she said calmly.  "Let's go."  Again, the large guy took the wheel.  It wasn't long until the car picked up the highway and began to accelerate away.  Chatiqua grabbed a bag and handed it to Alice.  

                "There you go," she said.  "Get out of that black getup, will you?  You look like some goth chick about to talk about absinthe and listen to Peter Murphy."  She cackled and pulled a bright red sweatshirt out for herself.  

                The bag contained jeans, a T-shirt, a running jacket and sneakers.  Slowly, Alice shimmied out of her dress and changed into it.  A baseball cap and sunglasses served to conceal her hair and eyes.  Chatiqua frowned.  

                "Forgot about your funky hand there," she said.  "Just keep your hand in your pocket for now."  

                Alice nodded. "It's…it's good to see you," she said warmly, and smiled.  

                "Yep, you too," Chatiqua replied.  "Been what, ten years.  When we was down in juvie."  She spoke the last words with a ghetto accent.  "When we was _homegirls."  _She grinned and switched back to standard English without missing a beat.  

                "I want you to meet my friend Colin," she said, indicating the fellow behind the wheel.  He raised a thick arm and saluted.  

                "Charmed," he said, smiled, and continued driving.  

                Alice grinned.  

                "So…so what happens now?" she asked.  

                "Oh," her friend said, "I have moved far beyond the lowly incarcerated girl I once was, Alice. And now that you're out…you can help me achieve my vision."  

                The drugs were beginning to wear off, and Alice tilted her head at her friend, her interest piqued. 

                "I've been making movies, dear Alice, dear Alice," Chatiqua said.  "I moved out to California and got myself a job as cameraman.  Camera_woman_, I should say.  Started off in porno.  That was _nasty, _I can tell you, but it was a start.  Occasionally I worked in music videos.  That was fun and good money, but it wasn't regular work.  After that I got a job working for a company that made direct-to-video horror movies.  You've seen them; you know, the really bad no-budget horror movies.  Now _that _was fun.  But it taught me what I really, really want to do.  Colin worked for the same company as an actor.  You've seen him in _Biker Chainsaw Babes, Don't Turn On the Light, Prom Date From Hell, _and the like."  She cackled.  

Colin took his right hand off the wheel and made a stabbing motion with his right hand.  He bared his teeth in mock threat.  His chiseled features assumed a hostile mien.

                "YIKE YIKE YIKE YIKE," he chanted, in order to provide appropriate sound effect.  

                Alice Pierpont, who actually _had _stabbed people to death before, glanced at him and smiled pleasantly. 

                "All good things must come to an end," Chatiqua continued.  "And I'm afraid that cutbacks lost me my job.  I was arrested for a bit…couldn't raise bail.  But now I am out and I am _ready to rock.  _I know exactly what I want to do, and you, dear Alice, are the _perfect _person to help me."  

                "I'm crazy, or so they say," Alice pointed out.  

                "Perhaps.  And you are also a _killer.  _You have experience.  And I think you'll look good on camera.  I want to be the vision behind the camera, that's what I like doing.  Together…together we can do _amazing _things."  Chatiqua's eyes glittered.  Her voice was strong with zeal.  This was her life's work.  This was what she had been put here to do.    

                Alice preened a bit.  Vanity was hardly unknown to her.  

                "What did you have in mind?" she asked.  

                "The three of us are going to do _great _things," Chatiqua said.  "Something _no one else _has done before."  

                "Snuff films?" Alice asked.  "There's no such thing, Teek."  

                "There will be," Chatiqua said.  "Our equipment is in the trunk.  These days, a good digital camcorder and a good fast laptop and that's all you need."  Her dark brown eyes gleamed.  "You, me, and Colin…we're going to create not just cheap, homemade snuff films.  We are going to make…_fully fledged homicidal productions."  _


	4. Quiet On The Set

                The first thing she was aware of was a sharp scent of disinfectant.  It stung her nostrils and made her flinch.  It also pushed her towards wakefulness.  Her chest ached dully.  She moaned and shifted in the bed.  She could hear a soft beep keeping time with her pulse.   Also a soft voice:  _Oh, I think she's waking up.  _

Clarice Starling opened her eyes and looked around.  A nurse in flowered scrubs hovered over her.  Behind the nurse, Josh Graham and Jack Crawford stood.  They watched her carefully.  Clarice shifted again in the bed and tried to sit up.  

                "Hey, guys," she said softly.  

                "Hi," Josh said. 

                "How are you, Starling?" Crawford asked.  "And what the hell happened?" 

                She let out a breath.  "My chest hurts," she said.  "It all…it all happened so fast.  One minute these people were saying they worked for the hospital, the next minute they were shooting me."  

                Both of their faces twisted.  Clarice knew what they were thinking.  _Starling screwed up.  _But she hadn't.  She had done everything she could do.  And for that matter, Alice had behaved herself perfectly fine.  Actually, Alice had asked the girl not to kill her.  

                "Well," Josh said, "at least you're all right."  The words _I told you so _were obvious in his tone, but he didn't say them.  

                "Starling, the hospital is _livid," _Crawford said.  "You stay in the hospital for as long as you need to.  Once you're out, both you and Josh will be on this case.  You know her best."  

                Clarice nodded.  

                "What can you tell me about the people who did this?" Josh asked.  Clarice's lips twisted.  Alice had been his first case.  Now here he was, treating her like an interviewee.  Anger coursed through her and she pushed it away.  She couldn't expect Josh to wait on this.  

                "The girl…the girl was young," she said.  "Black girl.  Light-colored skin, like coffee with cream. More or less like Ardelia.  You've met her, haven't you, Josh?"  

                Josh nodded.  

                "She was short," Clarice continued.  Even if all of this was going to land on her head, she'd still do her job as best she could.  "Short hair, really cut close to her head.  She had glasses but they may have been part of the disguise.  She spoke regular English but switched back and forth between accents.  She knew Alice from somewhere and Alice knew her.  I think Alice called her 'Teek'.   The guy was big.  Tall and sort of running to fat.  He had sort of dirty blonde hair.  Taller than you, Mr. Crawford.  Really open face, not bad looking.  Blue eyes, I think, but I'm not sure.  He looked like a sort of middle-American boy.  You'd never look twice at him."  

                Josh's pen scratched over his pad.  "Great," he said.  Then Clarice remembered what the middle-American boy had done.  

                "How…how is Agent Hemd?"  Clarice asked.  

                Josh's face twisted.  He glanced wordlessly at Crawford.  An awful lurch struck Clarice's stomach.  

                "Is he…is he alive?" she pressed.  

                Crawford pressed his lips together and shook his head.  "Dead at the scene," he said slowly.  "There was nothing you could have done for him, Starling."  

                Clarice felt tears sting her eyes.  A good agent was dead, because she'd felt sorry for a killer.  It was a heavy weight to have to bear.  

                "We're going to try and put names to these people," Josh said carefully.  "I'll keep you posted.  But we're going to get these people put away.  Whatever it takes."  

                "I'll help any way I can," Clarice promised.  She wondered idly if they were going to suspend her.  She hoped not.  Nobody knew Alice Pierpont quite as well as she did.  

                _Except Josh, her mind reminded her.  _

                "OK, Starling," Crawford said.  "Listen…it'll all be okay.  You just concentrate on getting better.  Once you're out, we'll put you on the case too."  

                They left then.  Clarice stared up at the ceiling.  Lots of ceiling tiles.  She counted forty-two of them and then double-checked them.  

                Who were these people and why had they freed Alice?  What were they planning now?  The ceiling tiles offered her no answers.  

…

                The sun shone in the window of the farmhouse.  The bedroom itself was anonymous and quiet.  The bed was soft and comfortable.   Down the hall, the sound of a running shower droned.     

                Alice Pierpont awoke slowly, easy and uncomfortable under the sheets.   A good night's sleep had cleared her system of the Stelazine and the other drugs they had made her take.  She glanced around the unfamiliar room and blinked.  

                A knock came at the door.  Alice sat up and rubbed her eyes.  She felt a lot better now.  More herself.  And she was ready for some fun. 

                "Come in," she called. 

                The door opened to admit the large form of Colin Barksdale.  He smiled happily at her and waved.  

                "Morning!" he said merrily.  "Out of bed, lazybones.  We have a shoot today!"  

                Alice grunted.  "_You try Stelazine and see how active you are," she said.  The shower cut off, and footsteps echoed down the hall.  Chatiqua Miller entered the room in a bathrobe.  In her hands she held two envelopes, which she held out to the other people in the room. _

                "Morning, Alice," she smiled.  "Now you take a shower.  I need you looking good.  We're going to do our first shoot today!"  

                Alice slid out from under the covers and took the proffered envelope.  It contained several thick papers.  As she peered at it, she realized it was a screenplay.  

                "Which role am I playing?" she asked.  Then she examined it a bit further.  "Trying some documentaries?"  

                Chatiqua grinned.  "It's just a little taste," she said.  "Also, it'll put the people watching us off their speed.  We're shooting this one on location, dear Alice, dear Alice."  She chuckled.  "Now go shower."  

                A shower served to wake Alice up further.  Chatiqua ran her actors out to the car, grinning happily.  The house in Baltimore that they had chosen to hide out in was not far from the shoot location.  Alice frowned at it as they got closer.  

                "Hey," she said thoughtfully.  "This is _my place."  _

                Chatiqua nodded.  

                "They never sold it," Alice said thoughtfully, staring at the house she had lived in.  "My victims are still suing me.  Most of my money is hidden now."  

                "Atta girl," Chatiqua said.  "I saw the specials they did on you on Lifetime TV.  Your place is just _perfect _for the shoot.  Won't take too long.  Colin's gonna set things up.  You and I need to go hire some stuntmen."  

                The house itself was preternaturally quiet.  Dust motes danced in the air.  The house was still and silent.  The front door was locked and marked with the seal of the FBI.  Alice crossed around and opened a window she knew was unlocked.  It screeched open and they climbed inside.  

                The power was off, but that was no matter.  Colin went around to the meter, cut off the wire lock holding it shut, and pulled the meter free.  On the back of it were four metal prongs covered over with plastic covers.  Colin removed the covers and plugged it back in.  Several lights promptly came on.  Alice grinned. 

                "So," she said.  "All we need to do is hire some stuntmen, hmmm?"  

                Chatiqua nodded.  Her brown eyes gleamed at her friend.  This had been her plan ever since she had begun to work in the movie industry.  

                "Perhaps a better term is 'disposable actor'," she said calmly.  "C'mon.  Basically we go to the bus station and see if someone wants to be in a movie.  You'd be amazed."  

                Alice sighed.  "This better not be porno, Teek," she admonished.  

                "Alice, _girlfriend.  _That is not part of my vision.  Have faith in me, dear girl.  I'll make you famous."  

                "I already _am _famous," Alice said, grinning.  "I'm a serial killer.  Plus I'm Hannibal Lecter's daughter."  

                Chatiqua took her friend's arm and began yanking her out the door.  "I know, I know.  Come on.  Time is money, you know."  

                Alice rolled her eyes but let her friend take her out to the car.  "You're so _bossy, Teek," she said playfully.  _

                For two attractive women, picking up a couple of guys was relatively easy.  As Chatiqua had planned, they went to the bus station and scouted out victims.  They settled on two guys, rather clean-cut.  Alice figured them for penny-pinching college students, and Chatiqua concurred.  They would do; it wasn't like their roles would involve much acting anyway.    Alice made the initial approach, smiling brightly at them.  

                "Hey, guys," she said, smiling pleasantly.  "I'm Alicia and this is my friend Sarah.  Wanna be in a movie?"  

                "A movie?" one of them said.  "What kind?" 

                "An independent film," Alice said.  "We need some actors for some secondary roles.  It'll be fun."  

                The two guys looked at each other and grinned.  They were clearly thinking porno.  Alice chuckled.  

                "We'll pay you, too," she offered to clinch the deal.  "Five hundred bucks apiece.  You'd be able to buy a plane ticket to wherever you're going.  Or a train ticket.  That would be a lot cleaner than here and quicker, too.  You interested?"  

                The guys took them up on their offer, identifying themselves as Scott and Chris.  Alice didn't care what their names were.  The foursome returned to the house, where Colin had been setting up scenery in Alice's den and basement.  

                "We're all ready," he said, grinning.  With some pride, he showed the two women what he had done with the basement and den.  Alice was suitably impressed.  He had really done quite a bit.  

                "Okay, okay," Chatiqua said demandingly.  She clapped her hands.  "Quiet on the set.  Alice, sweetheart, go get changed, will you?"  

                Alice sighed and returned in a man's white shirt and trousers.  She grabbed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail, holding it in place with a rubber band.  She stared at Chatiqua, who was already crouching behind her camera.  

                "I can't believe you want me to play _this _role," she said dubiously.  

                Chatiqua aimed the camera and zoomed back and forth, moving the tripod a few times to find an angle.  

                "Nonsense," she said distractedly.  "Who _better to play this role than you?"  _

                Alice shrugged.  She moved to the desk and sat down behind it.   Scott, one of their disposable actors, appeared at the door.  He glanced over at Chatiqua and grinned.  

                "Do I stand right here?" 

                "Right there," Chatiqua assured him.  "Have you gone over the script?  Good.  Quiet on the set…and…_action."  _

                Shooting the first scene proved to be more fun than Alice had thought it would be. And this was so very fitting; their audience would love it.  It was _good to be back._


	5. Documentary

                _Author's note:  This chapter took a bit – had to track down scripts for RD and SoTL on the web.  _

                The room at Quantico was dark, and the atmosphere was tense.  Three people sat in the room, staring at the blue glow of a TV screen mounted atop an AV cart.  In the air were wafts of determination and grief.  They had failed and set a killer free; now they would make up for it.  

                Earlier that day, a package had arrived at Quantico.  All mail to the FBI was routinely fluoroscoped.  In this case, the package had been completely harmless; there was nothing explosive therein.  It had contained a simple VHS cassette and a note. 

                The package had been addressed to Behavioral Sciences, and so it had been sent down into the subterranean depths of Jack Crawford's realm.  He took one look at the note and called in the two profilers attached to the case.  Clarice Starling had been released from the hospital, given appropriate painkillers, and sent on her way.  She wasn't clear for the field yet, but she could work in the office.  Joshua Graham, however, had no such problem.  But the desire to set right what had gone so catastrophically wrong in a psychiatric hospital's parking lot burned in both of them. 

                The note had been turned over to the lab, where it was scanned, analyzed, and copied.  There was little to find.  The note was written on plain old white notepaper, available in any office supply store.  No impressions, no hairs, no latent prints.  The writing had been tentatively identified as Alice Pierpont's.  Given the wording of the letter, both profilers believed that it was the case.  

                Clarice glanced down at her copy of the letter.  She was feeling better physically, but seeing the letter made her burn with anger.  The letter wasn't overtly hostile, but it was a stark reminder.  She'd been the weak sister, feeling sorry for Alice, and she had gotten colossally suckered in return.  

_Dear Reesey and Joshie, _

_                It feels good to call you that.  In fact, it feels good to be able to write you at all, without Barney the friendly nurse telling me, "I'm sorry, Alice, you know you're not allowed to write them."  But I am out and I am feeling GREAT!     _

_                I hope you're doing all right there, Reesey.  I didn't want my friend to shoot you, actually.  I'm glad you survived and I hope you're all right.  I hope you're not mad at me but I know you are.  Forgive me dear Reesey.  I implore and plead for your forgiveness. I am but a sad little girl all alone in the world.  I'll even choke back a few sobs if it'll do any good.  _

_                Josh—well hey Josh, what can I say?  I still remember our time together, quite fondly.  I don't know if you do or not.  It was great, Josh, but I'm afraid I can't have you shooting me again. That sort of thing usually says 'unhealthy relationship'._

_Anyways, please enjoy the attached movie.  It's our very first attempt at homicidal productions.  Our second one is already in the can, but we'll start off with this one.  Sort of a documentary, you might say…_

_Sincerely,_

_Alice Pierpont  _

                Clarice felt flames of rage in her stomach.  _When you wanted something from me, it was 'Agent Starling', _she thought, glaring at the letter.  Her hand clamped into a fist.  

                "Okay," Crawford said.  "Everyone ready?  Let's watch the movie."  

                Clarice nodded.  Across from her, Josh nodded silently as well.  Crawford reached across and pressed PLAY on the VCR.  The screen flickered for a bit and then faded to black.  The word GRAHAM appeared on the screen in white block letters.  The image resolved into Alice Pierpont wearing a man's white shirt and black trousers padding to what looked like her front door.  She opened it to admit a man that they did not recognize.  Her lips curled up in a grin.  

                "Special Agent Graham," she said.  "What an unexpected pleasure."  

                The man they didn't recognize leaned in.  Young guy.  Next to Clarice, Josh tensed.  Clarice found herself sympathetic; she knew what this was about.  

                "I'm sorry to bother you, Doctor," the young man on the tape said.  "I know it's late."  

                "No bother," Alice assured him.  "We're both night owls, I think.  Come in, please.  Let me take your coat."  

                She conducted the unfortunate man into an office and sat him down.  

                "We've been on the wrong track this whole time, doctor," the young man said.  "Our whole profile is wrong.  We've been looking for someone with a crazy grudge.  Some kind of anatomical knowledge – decertified doctors, med school dropouts, laid-off mortuary workers…," 

                Alice nodded.  Clarice found herself realizing that Alice _did _have a strong resemblance to her father.  The same pale coloring.  The same maroon eyes.  The same habit of engaging in recreational murder.  

                "From the precision of the cuts, yes.  And his choice of souvenirs," Alice agreed.  

                "But that's where we're off target," the _faux _Will Graham argued.  "He's not collecting body parts."  

                "Then why keep them?" Alice asked, tilting her head and reminding Clarice quite strongly of her father.  

                "He's not keeping them.  He's eating them."  

                Josh Graham shifted next to her in his seat, turning towards her.  In the light of the flickering screen, she saw his face contorted with repressed anger and horror.  This was something that had affected him from a young age, and to see it mocked on the screen infuriated him.  

                "Josh," she said gently, "it's all right."  Oddly she found herself wondering what would happen if Alice filmed the murder of _her _father.  Thinking about that made her understand better why he was so angry.  

                Josh's eyes were hot as he stared fixedly at the floor.  He said nothing for several moments.  Then he steeled himself and looked back at the screen.  Clarice thought he was forcing himself to.  

                "I'm going to get her for this," he muttered.  

                On the screen, Alice had just returned to the office and begun to happily stab the poor schmuck they had playing Will Graham.  Josh's hands jittered and clamped into fists.  He knew what came next.   But here, things began to deviate from the script.  In lieu of Dr. Lecter's calm and silky tones, Alice laughed merrily, as if she was having a great time.  The actor playing Will Graham began to scream.  This was not in the script.  

                "Remarkable boy," Alice said.  "I think I'll eat your heart.  After all…your son broke mine."  

                The stabbing continued.  The camera lovingly recorded the wet sounds of the blade punching through flesh.  Unlike reality, the actor playing Will Graham did not stab Alice with arrows.  Instead, he simply died.  

                The scene then cut to Alice sitting at a kitchen table.  She stared directly into the camera with a smirk.  A piece of bloody meat speared on her fork waved at the camera as if she was greeting it.  Then she popped it in her mouth with relish.  

                "I just _love _leftovers," she said thoughtfully.  

                The screen faded to black.  Clarice swallowed and leaned over to Josh.  He was trembling, staring at the screen.  Yes, this had gotten through to him.  He clenched his hand into a fist.  Clarice reached across to pat his shoulder calmingly.  Then the scene flickered to black again and the word STARLING appeared on the screen.  

                It then dissolved to Alice Pierpont walking into a room in what appeared to be her basement.  She wore a skirt suit and carried a bag.  She stopped and spoke briefly with a young black man dressed in a white uniform.  Clarice scowled.  She knew Alice's basement all too well.  

                "Hi," the young man said.  "I'm Barney.  He told you, don't get near the bars?" 

                Alice nodded.  "Clarice Starling," she said.  "Yes, he did."  

                _Smartass, _Clarice Starling thought, and scowled in the darkness again.  She glanced again.  That wasn't Barney; it was too small.  It looked like a girl with short hair, now that she looked at it.  The same girl who had shot her, when you came down to it.  

                "Okay," the _faux _Barney said.  "Past the others, it's the last cell.  Stay to the middle.  I put the chair out for you.  I'll be watching.  You'll do fine."  

                The scene cut to Alice walking down a hall.  Clarice suspected it was edited, since there wasn't a hallway in her basement that was as long as the asylum she remembered.  There were a few barred cell fronts.  Just as Clarice remembered, a man playing Miggs told Alice he could smell her cunt.  Alice simply glared at him and went on her way.  

                She stopped.  The camera cut to a tall, bluff man standing in the cell.  Clarice thought he looked like Dr. Lecter about as much as a machine-gun looked like a shillelagh.  He _did _look like the orderly who had killed Agent Hemd.  Only now his hair was slicked back to look like the good psychiatrist.  

                When Alice spoke, her voice held an exaggerated Southern accent.  

                "Dr. Lecter…mah name is Clarice Starlin'," she said.  "May Ah tawk with yew?"  

                _I do not talk like **that**, _Clarice Starling thought, and gritted her teeth.  

                The man simply eyed her.  "Good morning," he said in a reserved tone.  

                "Doctor," Alice said, "we have a hard problem in psychological profiling.  I want to ask for your help with a questionnaire."  

                "'We' being the Behavioral Science Unit, at Quantico," the young man observed.  "You're one of Jack Crawford's, I expect."  

                The rest of the conversation ran true to how it had gone when it had been real, and Clarice doing it too.  That didn't surprise the profilers watching the merry little video.  Dr. Fred Chilton's last gift to the world had been the tapes from the bugged conversations he had intercepted.  Her conversations with Dr. Lecter were on a thousand different websites, transcribed lovingly in every detail.  

                The conversation ran its course, and Alice began to walk away.  Miggs caught her as he had before.  This time, things were different.  Instead of groping in her purse for tissues as Clarice herself had done, Alice turned and faced the cell face on.  A cruel grin flickered over her face, making her resemble her father much more than she had ever resembled Clarice.  From under her jacket she produced a pistol. 

                _That's not right, they made me leave my pistol at the front desk, _Clarice had time to think, and then Alice shot the fake Miggs twice.  An agonized scream came from Miggs's cell.  

                The young man gamely pounded on the plexiglass, yelling for her.  Alice strolled back to the cell calmly, looking in at him.  

                "I would not have had that happen to you," he said.  Pained moans from 'Miggs's' cell counterpointed his words.  "Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me."  

                "Oh, that's _just faaaaahn," _Alice said, and blew imaginary smoke from the barrel of her pistol.  "I gut-shot the bastard.  Now you get to listen to him die."   She crossed back to the other cell, where Miggs lay moaning on the floor.  She opened the door and stood proudly in the cell, one pump atop Migg's body as if taking credit for her work.  Her eyes bored directly into the camera as she spoke to it.

                "Face it, Reesey," she said.  "This is what you _wanted _to do, isn't it?"

                Then the scene faded again.  The fake Graham from the first scene and the fake Miggs from the second were both lying on a basement floor.  They were moaning and clearly in pain. Blood leaked from their wounds.  Calmly, the camera cut over them, making sure to get faces, expressions, last jerky motions.  Like a lover it caressed their contorted expressions, zooming in closely so that no scrap of their pain was lost.   For several minutes this went on.  The figures did not make any last words, only pained moans and grunts.  When they were not entertaining enough for their captors, a foot entered the frame and trod on their wounds so they would scream.

                Clarice felt sick.  Suddenly, the same pistol entered the frame.  It was quite close up and looked like a goddam cannon hovering over the faces of the two victims.  Two spurts of flame spat from the barrel, and a small hole appeared in the middle of each victim's forehead.  The camera swung away from them and up to Alice Pierpont, still wearing the suit, still holding her gun.  

                "This has been a Homicidal Production," she said lightly.  "It's our first, so don't judge us _too _harshly.  There will be _many, many _more.  And we'll make sure you get copies."  Her strange left hand fluttered up and waved to the profilers.  

                "I'd say 'see you soon', but that wouldn't work out," Alice said.  "But _do _take care of yourselves.  Reesey, I'm glad you're OK.  Joshie…what can I say?  I still do care."  Her eyes flashed.  "Break a leg," she said calmly.  

                Then her visage disappeared, replaced by white lettering that read _THIS HAS BEEN A HOMICIDAL PRODUCTION.  COPYRIGHT 2004. _

The lights came back up.  Clarice closed her eyes and thought for a moment.  Crawford's voice was dry.  

                "So," he said.  "Now we know what we're dealing with."  


	6. Early Roles

                They had a breakthrough.  

                Clarice Starling pulled the FBI motor pool Mercury up outside the small house.  The neighborhood was a nice middle-class section of Baltimore.  The houses were well maintained and the yards kept in good shape.  Some of the yards had kid's toys scattered in them.  That was fine with Clarice.  Kids ought to be allowed to play in their yards.  She had, up until she'd been sent to the Lutheran Home.  

                She killed the ignition and glanced over at Josh.  He seemed quiet and thoughtful.  She'd been mildly obsessed with Hannibal Lecter ever since her first time meeting him.  Alice Pierpont, once she had come on the scene, had decided that Josh was her FBI agent paramour.  What was going on in that head behind those blue eyes?  

                More troublesome for Clarice was the idea that she had spawned that interest herself, somehow.  Before Alice had captured her, she had never expressed interest in Josh.  Had she, Clarice, put that idea in a mentally unstable woman's head?  After Alice's capture, she had racked her brains, trying to think of anything she might have said that gave Alice the idea.  She was pretty sure she hadn't.  In her report on the incident, she had stated that Alice came up with the idea on her own, and no one had pointed a finger at her and cried _Liar!  Liar!  You gave her the idea, Clarice. It was you. _Josh had never said anything accusing her.  But the idea still nagged at her.   

                "Whatcha thinking, Graham?" she asked solicitously.  

                Josh looked over at her and shrugged.  He was normally quiet.  It made him hard to read.  Over the past two years, he had been part of hunts for a few other serial killers and other crimes that the Behavioral Sciences Unit had been asked to look into.  He was good at it, too.  Watching him was weird.  He would take the case file, take all the reports and stuff out, and scatter them around himself.  Then he would pull things out randomly and come up with ties and leaps of logic that nobody else had seen.  It was damn spooky.

                "Nothing, really," he said.  "I'm just…wondering what comes next."  

                She nodded.  "You nervous?" she asked, and realized too late that no matter what the truth was the answer would invariably be no.  

                "Not for myself," he said.  "I don't think she'll come after me.  It's just…she's a killer, but part of her wanted me to like her.  You, too, I think."  

                _She wants me to like her.  She threw me in a cage and tortured me and didn't feed me.  Someone needs to buy the chick a copy of 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', if you ask me.  _

                "Well," Clarice said, "let's meet our interviewee."  

                She observed the house for a moment.  It was a simple, white-framed Cape Cod.  She strode up to the door and rang the doorbell.  A moment later, there was a flash of curtain and the face of an older woman was looking at her.   This was Annette Thompson, a staff psychologist at Chelmsford Juvenile Detention Center.  She eyed Clarice carefully for a few moments.  

                Clarice smiled and pulled out her ID.  "Hi," she said calmly.  "I'm Special Agent Starling.  This is Special Agent Graham.  We spoke on the phone earlier."  

                "Oh, yes."  The woman opened the door and let them in.  She brought them through the house to a living room.  Her couch was nothing fancy, but it was soft and comfortable.  There were a few inexpensive prints and posters decorating the walls.  Clarice sat down and smiled politely.   "Come on in." 

                "Thank you so much for agreeing to talk with us," Clarice added.  

                "No problem at all," she said.  "You _do _understand, there are things I can't discuss.  Confidentiality, you know."  

                "Of course, Dr. Thompson," Clarice said.   ""To start off, how long have you been at Chelmsford?"  

                The woman tapped a hand on the arm of her chair.  "About twenty years," she said.  

                "And you treated Alice Pierpont when she was there ten years ago."  

                Dr. Thompson's small hand worried at her collar.  Her hair was pure white and shoulder length.  She wasn't unattractive, even at her age.  Her lips pursed.  Hearing the name of one of her most infamous charges seemed to frighten her.  

                "Ah, yes," Dr. Thompson said.  "She was a troubled girl, even then."  

                Clarice nodded.  _That's putting it mildly, _she thought.  

                "Did she have any friends while she was there?"  Clarice asked.  "We're investigating her escape, and we're trying to see who might have helped her.  It may be a long shot, and I know it's been a while, but…," 

                "Oh, I know _exactly _who it would have been, Agent Starling," the psychologist said.  "Are you looking for a young black woman, about her age?  About five foot two, thin build, sort of coffee-with cream skin, short hair cropped close to her head, and glasses?"  

                Clarice Starling opened her mouth and then closed it.  She swallowed.  That was the woman who had shot her and freed Alice, down to a tee.  

                "Well, yes," she said.  "That is one of the suspects we're looking for."  

                Dr. Thompson shuddered.  "Chatiqua Miller," she said instantly.  "Here."  She got up and crossed the room.  From a bookcase, she took a stout black photo album.  

                "I keep pictures of the kids I deal with," she said.  "So many of them are really sad, troubled children.  If you can get to them young, you can sometimes turn them around.  I know it probably sounds silly and you think I'm just a bleeding heart, but it means something to them that someone cares enough to keep their picture."  

                She opened the book.  Yellow post-its sticking off the sides marked the years.  She paged through  until she reached a section labeled _1994. _ Then there were pictures of kids in uniforms.  Prison uniforms, Clarice realized. These were juvenile felons and criminals.  Kids who had raped, beaten, murdered, and stabbed.  Yet here they were surprisingly normal: friends with their arms slung over each other's shoulders, basketball teams playing, hunched over schoolbooks and notebooks.  

                "Here," the psychologist said.  "Right there."  

                _1994 Girls Wing, A section _read the caption.  Clarice found it odd.  Most prisons didn't have yearbooks.  There was a group picture of girls in navy uniforms facing the camera.  Some glared antagonistically out; some favored the camera with con-wise smirks; and some beamed happily.  

                The girls had self-segregated with a degree that would have made the most old-fashioned Southern bigot proud, Clarice noticed.  Black girls on one side, then Hispanic girls, then white.  Except for two.  Over on the far right side, a black girl stood proudly next to a white girl.  

                The black girl's skin was coffee with cream.  The white girl's hair was dark and straight.  Clarice stared at the picture.  It was hard to tell, but it sure _looked _like Alice.  

                On the next page was a picture of the two girls again, standing next to each other and staring into the camera. Alice's face had not changed that much, Clarice noticed.  They seemed far older than twelve in the picture.  Alice stared into the camera with a cool smile on her face, as if she was thinking of a private joke only she could appreciate.  Chatiqua stood next to her, not even bothering with a smile.  She stared at the camera as if it was prey and she was sizing it up. 

                "That's them," Clarice said.  "Dr. Thompson, if it's not too much trouble, could I borrow this picture?"  

                The woman sighed and nodded.  "Yes, I suppose," she said sadly.  "Those two…I had such hopes, but I should have known better."  

                Clarice leaned forward.  So did Josh.  "How so?" Clarice asked.  

                "Well," she said.  "You have to understand.  They were from totally opposite backgrounds.  Race, money, social class.  Alice was from a wealthy family.  Chatiqua was from a poor section of Baltimore.  We _never _would have seen those two as friends.   There was one thing they had in common, though.  They were both highly intelligent.  So, at first we thought that was the attraction.  Most of our kids are academically challenged, you know.  They always got excellent grades.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the _only _thing they had in common."  

                Clarice nodded.  "What was the other thing, Dr. Thompson?" she asked politely.  Internally she knew the answer wasn't going to be good.  

                The doctor sighed.  "The other thing waaaas," she began thoughtfully and then stopped.  "A lot of the kids we get are, well, troubled.  Many of them have mental or psychological problems.  And we do try to make sure all the kids are involved, and that no one is left behind, but…you know…it's hard.  We get _very _little funding from the state."  

                Clarice sighed.  "Alice Pierpont was diagnosed as bipolar," she added.  

                The psychologist shook her head.  "That's privileged.  I can't discuss that with you."  

                Clarice raised her hands.  She wanted as much information as she could get.  "Of course," she said gracefully.  "I understand."  Beside her, Josh simply sat watching.  She wondered what was grinding away in that head of his.  

                "Some of our girls are depressed, and usually those are the cases that hurt you the worst," Dr. Thompson began.  "Well, all right.  During the six months that Alice spent in Chelmsford, we had four suicides on the girls' wing.  That's a lot more than normal.  We never could _prove _anything, but…," 

                Josh leaned forward now.  His voice was calm and relaxing.  "Did you think they murdered them?" 

                Dr. Thompson's face pinched again.  "No," she admitted.  "Clearly suicide in all four cases.  This was something subtler.  In each case, each girl was new to the unit.  For the first three, it was their first time in a locked juvenile unit.  For the fourth, it was her second.  Each girl was alone, depressed…unhappy."  She took a deep breath.  "And in each case, Alice and Chatiqua had sort of taken each girl in.  At the time, we thought they were being nice.  Reaching out to the girl in need, you know.  They would take her aside and talk to her.  Then…well, then we'd find the girl hanging from a vent or with her wrists slashed in the shower."  

                Clarice tensed.  "And what did you do about this?  I mean, didn't you separate them or something?"  

                The psychologist shook her head.  "We didn't have any proof," she explained.  "The first time, no one even _thought _that a couple of twelve-year-olds would try something like that.  Even the second and third times, they were extremely convincing.   But something just wasn't right."  

                Clarice found her stomach beginning to sink.  Had they been picking victims at age twelve? That was frightening.  She thought of the juvenile detention center.  A cellblock full of bad girls, locked up at young ages for whatever crimes they had committed.  And right in their midst, two middle-school predators seeking vulnerable prey.  She could see it all too well, drawing on her own experience in the orphanage. 

                "What wasn't right?" Clarice asked.  

                Dr. Thompson's throat worked.  "The way they acted," she said.  "I probably shouldn't show you this…but…," she shook her head.  "I didn't realize what it was they were doing," she said in a strangled tone.   "If I show you this…_promise _me you won't tell anyone." 

                What did she have to show?  Clarice swallowed.  "Certainly," she said.  "I give you my word."  

                The white-haired psychiatrist glanced over at Josh.  "Him too?"  

                Josh nodded wordlessly.  When he spoke his voice was a bit gravelly, as he had deferred to Clarice.  "Of course, Dr. Thompson," he said.  Curiosity had lit lamps in his eyes.  

                The woman got up and walked to a drawer.  She rummaged through it and came up with a videocassette.  Labeled on the spine were the words _Pierpont/Miller.  _Slotting it into her VCR, she eyed the FBI agents nervously, as if she was guilty of some crime.  

                "We videotaped them and interviewed them," she said.  "We did that for all the girls on a particular unit whenever there's a suicide.  It helps show what their state of mind was.  It helps, really it does.  I put this together once I realized what was happening."  

                The TV sprang to life.  The screen fuzzed and then resolved into Alice Pierpont, looking younger and staring into the camera with wide eyes.  Tears had tracked down her cheeks.  She was rubbing at her eyes with a tissue.  She was sitting at a desk across from the woman whose living room Clarice now occupied.  The room was concrete and industrial.  In the bottom of the screen were the numbers _5/16/1994 06:36 PM.   _

                "Could you state your name?" Dr. Thompson asked on the tape.  

                "Alice Pierpont," Alice said, and sniffled.  Her shoulders racked as she burst into tears. 

                "Now what can you tell us about what happened?" the psychologist asked.  

                "It was…so sudden," Alice said, and a fresh burst of sobs escaped her.  "Carolina had seemed kind of down in the dumps, so Teek and I started talking to her.  We kept trying to cheer her up, you know, include her.  She said some of the other girls were picking on her."  

                The doctor patted the girl's back and smiled comfortingly.  "I'm sure you helped her as much as you could," she said soothingly.   The real doctor, ten years later, frowned at the TV and shuddered.  

                "Anyways, they sent us down to eat, and she was really quiet at dinner," Alice continued, still sobbing.  "Teek and I ate with her.  She barely ate anything, and we asked her what was up.  She was sort of quiet and didn't say anything.  If only we'd known what she was going to do, we would've told somebody.  I thought she was just sort of down.  I never knew.  I feel so bad."  She pillowed her head on her arms and cried on the desk.  Her fist pounded in grief and she shook.  It was more emotion than Clarice had ever seen her display a decade later, and Clarice thought it was phony. 

                Then the scene crackled and dissolved in a poorly done cut.  Now it was a younger version of Chatiqua Miller sitting in the chair.  According to the timestamp it was now 7:13 PM.  Chatiqua was calmer than Alice had been.  She stared blankly forward, reminding Clarice of someone heavily sedated.  

                "Wow," she said, and worked her jaw.  "Holy crap…I can't believe it.  Alice and me, we just talked to her like half an hour before she did it."  She turned and looked at the doctor.  "We didn't know.  I mean…damn, I don't know _what _to say.  This is just…" She turned her hands so that her lighter-skinned palms showed.  "She was at dinner, and she was being really quiet.  So Alice and me sat with her, and she didn't eat.  Then up we went for rec and then headcount and bedtime, and I saw her go in the bathroom."  

                "What did you think?" the doctor asked.  

                Chatiqua trembled and shrugged.  "At the time, I didn't think nothing," she said.  "I just thought she was going to the bathroom.  Why would I think anything different?   Then she didn't come out, but I fell asleep."  Her face was blank and shocked, but she spoke with little emotion.  "It wasn't my fault, doc," she said plaintively.  "I didn't know."  

                Then there was another clumsy cut, back into Alice Pierpont in the same chair in the same office.   The date on the tape read _7/02/1994.  _Alice stared glassily at the psychologist again.  The psychologist was dressed differently; Alice's clothing looked largely the same.  

                "Wow," she said.  "I…I don't know what to say."  Unlike before, she was calm.  _Too _calm, as a matter of fact.  Clarice found herself thinking of how she had been under the influence of the Stelazine.  On the tape, young Alice shook her head back and forth slowly.  "Teek and I talked to her maybe forty-five minutes before she did it, towards the end of rec.  Then we came back to our unit, and I saw her sneaking over to the vent.  I…I didn't know what she was doing."  She gave the doctor on the other side of the desk a look that said she was really, truly innocent in this matter.  "I thought she was maybe trying to hide something in the vent.  Some girls do that, you know.  They think people don't look.  Or sometimes you can talk to other units if you yell loud enough.  I saw her doing it, but I never…_never_…had any idea she was going to hang herself."  

                Cut back to Chatiqua, who was in noisy tears.  "I didn't want her to do it," she wept.  "Alice and me, we tried to talk to Valerie.  Really, we did.  After Carolina we wanted to try and help.  We didn't want it to happen again."  She bawled like a toddler and the doctor attempted to comfort her.  

                Clarice thought  this was a particularly sick game of ping-pong.  White girl, black girl.  Alice and Chatiqua.  On the third go-round, they both cried a little bit, and on the fourth they cried a bit more.  The dates changed, and the name of the girl who'd killed herself changed, but that was it.  In each case, Alice and Teek admitted getting close to a girl who then took herself out of the equation.  

                The doctor was shaking as she turned the tape off.  "Do you see?"    

                Clarice sighed.  

                "Do you _see?" _the doctor stressed.  

                "Yes," Clarice said, hoping the psychologist was going to remain calm.  

                "What do you see?" she demanded.  

                "They are…they are swapping roles back and forth," Clarice said calmly.  "The first time around, Alice plays the grieving hard and overwrought role.  Chatiqua acts like she's in shock.   The second time around, they switch roles."  

                The doctor nodded.  "It took me years to realize that," she said.  "By the fourth time, Alice Pierpont was due for release in a few weeks, and her mother took her back and shipped her out of the country to boarding school.  Chatiqua Miller got a transfer to a group home.  At the time it was easier to see them go.  We couldn't prove anything."  

                Josh leaned forward.  "And they were refining," he muttered.  

                Both women looked over at him.  Clarice found her curiosity piqued.  "What did you say, Josh?" she asked.  

                He leaned forward and pointed.  "They're refining," he said.  "They're both sociopathic personalities.  They don't feel grief like they're showing. So they fake it.  Look."  He asked for the remote and rewound the tape.  

"The first time," Josh explained, "Alice is all overwrought and Chatiqua is in shock. But it's fake.  Alice doesn't know how much grief she should show; it's overdone.  Now in the next one, Chatiqua does the same thing and Alice plays in shock.  In both cases, acting in shock is more believable because it's more understated.  All they have to do is look blank." 

                Clarice nodded.  He was good, she thought.  Wet behind the ears, but good.  Then she made herself stop; she'd hated that so much when she was new.  

                "But you can tell that it's staged," Josh continued.  "Listen to what they say.  When you account for differences in their upbringing, they're saying the same thing.  This was planned and rehearsed.  In the third and fourth ones, though, they're synced.  They cry a few times in the third, and in the fourth they show a little more emotion.  They're refining their reactions, making themselves more and more passable each time."  

                The doctor let out a shuddering sigh.  "You two ought to come and work for us, if you ever get tired of the FBI," she said.  "It took me years of going over that tape to realize that.  I can't tell you how that makes me feel…knowing that those two treated our center as a hunting ground."  

                  Clarice smiled uncomfortably.  "Well, thank you for speaking with us, Dr. Thompson," she said.  "We'll do everything in our power to make sure they're both back where they belong."  She stood up and shook hands with the psychologist.   

                "It'll all be OK," she said.  "I promise."  

                The doctor nodded.  But four girls were dead; that could never be made OK.  Clarice and Josh left the house and piled back into the car.  

                "Good catch on them refining their methods," Clarice said absently.  

                Josh nodded.  "I saw it," he explained.  "That psychologist is a nice lady, but she's too…she sees the world through rose-colored glasses.  She had no idea.  She sees them all as poor, poor little things."  He shook his head.  "For a couple of female sociopaths, she'd have been putty in their hands."  He exhaled.  "That's not what weirds me out about this, though.  A lot of killers are like that.  They have psychologists and such eating out of the palms of their hands.  They're very convincing."  

                Clarice nodded.  "So what _does _weird you out?"  

                Josh smiled tightly.  "Think about it," he said.  "That's what they were doing when they were _twelve.  _What are they up to now that they're adults?"  

                The answer proved to be sooner than they thought.  On the ride back to Quantico, Josh's cell phone rang.  He picked it up and held it to his ear while Clarice drove.  

                "Graham," he said calmly.  

                "Graham, it's Crawford.  Are you and Starling heading back?"  

                "Yes, sir," Josh said.  "We're on the Baltimore-Washington Expressway now.  Maybe forty-five minutes out."  

                "Good," Crawford said.  "Come see me when you get here.  We just got another videotape." 


	7. Relations

                _Author's note: _

_                Yes, a while since I updated this one.  One of my originals seized control of my creative faculties.  That and I did have to figure out how to put the GD in here.  But inspiration has struck.  _

_                The middle section of this is very gory.  You have been warned.  (The gore's in the middle, see?  Goreos.  Anyways.  Enjoy.) _

Dr. Lecter was torn.  

                He sat at his desk, calmly reading through newspaper clippings from the American newspapers he had.  _LECTER DAUGHTER ESCAPES CUSTODY IN DRAMATIC GUN BATTLE, _screamed one headline.   _FBI AGENTS GUNNED DOWN AS MADWOMAN BREAKS FREE. _

Dr. Lecter's life since his departure from Chesapeake had been what he had always hoped it would be.  His accounts were denominated in American dollars.  In the United States he would have been well-to-do.  In South American he was phenomenally wealthy.  All the things he wanted in life were his for the asking.  He could purchase fine china, fine linens, artwork – everything he could possibly want.  

                But he was alone.  He had his servants, but they were there to see to his needs, not to provide companionship.  All this grandeur, all this fine food, everything he wanted…and yet he woke up alone and went to sleep alone.  This situation had once meant nothing to him at all.  Now, however, it was intolerable.  

He was torn between two women.  Alice, his daughter, and Clarice…ah yes, Clarice.  He was pleased that Alice was free.  Hopefully, he could intercept her and get her to safety.  She was troubled and would need his wisdom.  

                However, he was not pleased at all that Clarice had been hurt in Alice's escape.  According to the Baltimore papers, her injuries were not serious and she would recover.  There was that.  The other agent had apparently been killed.  Dr. Lecter did not mind that as much; it was Clarice who was special to him.  

                There was another question here.  Before, in Alice's home, he had planned to spirit Clarice away with him.  A few drugs and a bit of therapy, and she would come to the realization that he had long hoped she would.  She was not happy in the FBI.   He could show her that.  

                Counterpointing that was the fact of his daughter.  She was out there, and presumably she had remained free.  Still, Dr. Lecter felt a sort of obligation.  For one thing, she knew his address, and if she was recaptured she might be drugged and give him up.  For another, he was curious to get to know her.  He had never known that he had a daughter.   He would like to give her the benefit of his knowledge derived from years of living as a fugitive.  

                On the other hand, he could not exactly have two of them in the same house.  Whether or not Alice had been involved in gunning Clarice down, Clarice was likely to bear a bit of a grudge.  Law enforcement officials tended to be awfully vengeful when you killed their fellows.  Such anger would get in the way of Clarice's therapy. 

                No matter _who _he decided to take back with him, however, his choice was clear.  He had returned to his solitary life as a wealthy man-about-town in South America.  Such a life had no further interest for him.  One of them would return with him.  Whether it be daughter or paramour, his duty or his desire, he would no longer be alone.  

                He walked over to a telephone and looked for a broker of last-minute cancellations.  He had identity papers in several different identities, and traveling to the United States would be no bother.  His destiny could take two paths.  He would have to see which it took. 

…

The second movie proved to be as bad as the first.

Again, Clarice and Josh assembled in the meeting room.  Again, the flickering screen promised them further mayhem.  This time, however, it was not directly aimed at them.  

                The words _MARCIA SKEWER KILLING _flashed on the screen and dissolved into Alice Pierpont standing in her kitchen.  She wore a skirt that fell just below the knee, pumps, and a silk blouse.   On her head was a blonde wig.  She smirked at the camera and adopted a soppy look.  Her voice was plummy and sounded fake.  

                "Hello," she said.  "I'm Marcia Skewer.  Today, on _Marcia Skewer Killing, _we're going to look at different ways to engage in home decorating."  She raised her hands and clasped them in front of her breasts and looked _tres _domestic.  

                The camera zoomed back to indicate that Alice was standing in a kitchen.  Next to her, on the kitchen table, a young man was tied down to the table.  A piece of duct tape covered his mouth.  Sweat beaded up on his forehead.  He made muted foghorning sounds through his gag and stared at the camera helplessly, as if the viewers might help him in his plight.  

                "This is Dave," Alice said.  "Have you ever had the problems of a troublesome victim in the house and no décor?  Today, I'll show you how you can take a victim and make a _lovely _bouquet suitable for sprucing up your kitchen table."  Amazingly, she giggled.  

                With a wave of her hand, she indicated some tools next to her.   "You'll need some tools," Alice said thoughtfully.  "For this project, we'll need a wide-bladed skinning knife.  This is a Schrade Sharpfinger skinning knife.  You can find it in any sporting goods store for about twenty dollars.  You'll also need some pruning shears, which you can find in any hardware store.  A grinding wheel or a sanding block is also handy, and that's obtainable just about anywhere.  And finally, you'll need a scalpel, available at medical supply stores anywhere you go."  She stopped and stared directly into the camera, a cool grin wreathing her face.  

                "The fact that you can buy these anywhere you want, available for cash and with no questions asked, is _very _useful," Alice said.  "It means that when someone…say, the FBI, maybe…tries to track down your purchases, they'll have a lot more trouble than if you were buying, say, a gun."  Then the pleasant hostess smile took over again.  

                "To begin with," Alice said, "first you'll need your skinning knife."  She lifted the small, wide-bladed knife and waved it at the camera.  She ran it up the aforementioned Dave's shirt and opened it neatly.  A sound like a muted scream came from under the tape.  

                "Next," Alice said, not at all interested in her victim's reactions, "you'll need to access the ribs.  This is where a skinning knife really shines."  She smiled again and bared her white teeth at the camera.  The blade slipped easily across his chest.  The wicked point of the curved blade slid underneath her victim's skin.  Blood began to well from the wound.  

                Clarice took a deep breath.  There was something awful in these movies.  Worse than Buffalo Bill had been.  She could not save the fellow on the screen from his tormentor.  She could see his suffering and make it her own.  What she could never do was save him.  

                "You may need to try a few cuts to get the blade between the skin and the ribs properly," Alice advised.    Slowly, carefully, she slid the blade between the young man's skin and the ribs.  Horrible muffled screams came from his taped mouth.  Blood welled from the slits.  Alice slipped on a rubber glove and grabbed the edge of her cut.  Expertly, she began to flay the young man on the table.  

                Clarice found her knuckle creeping to her mouth.  The horror on the screen before her struck deep in her gut.  Alice calmly pulled back the skin, exposing the young man's ribs.  During the whole time, her smile did not waver.  

                "Once you have the skin flayed back from the ribs," she said, still sounding eerily calm, "you simply need to free a few of them.  Pruning shears work well for this."  She lifted a set of pruning shears and brandished them at the camera.  

                It seemed to take her some effort to chop out the ribs.  Finally, a loud _click _sounded on the audio.  She lifted three or four ribs that she had cut free and waved them at the camera.  

                "It's a _good _thing," she said approvingly, and smiled.  Below her, the young man writhed and made muted sounds of pain.  Blood oozed from the wound and began to puddle on the table.  Calmly, Alice stepped back from the table to avoid getting any blood on her.  

                "You can go with all twelve, but that's a lot of work," she advised.  "Now, you need to sharpen the edge of the ribs."  For this, she displayed a belt sander.  It turned on with a hum, and Alice held the ribs one by one at a forty-five-degree angle.  A few minutes later, each rib was sharpened to a wicked point.  

                "Next you have to cut the blossoms," Alice said, smiling perkily.  "For this, I like to use a scalpel."  She lifted one and waved it at the camera.  "You can use the skin that you carved away for that, or you can take skin elsewhere."  

                Her victim bucked and screamed on the table as she lowered the scalpel to his skin.  Carefully, Alice cut a strangely festive flower shape out of his skin.  In the center she cut a small hole.  Then another, and another.  At first, she used the flap of skin she had flayed away from his ribs.  Then she cut a few others from his stomach and chest.  Clarice found herself nauseated as she watched.  The horror was bad enough.  What was worse, for Clarice, was that Alice was able to simply ignore her victim's suffering even from a few feet away. 

 She held up the blossoms she had cut and carefully slipped the pointed end of the rib through the center hole.  The resulting flowers lay limply.  Alice smiled another big fake plastic smile and put the hideous bouquet in a glass vase.  

                "Now for the finishing touch," she said thoughtfully.  A latex glove snapped as she put it on.  She dipped a finger into the open wound and carefully daubed the 'flowers' with blood.  

                "See?" she said, and clasped her hands in front of her chest again.  "A _beautiful_ bouquet."  The camera zoomed in on the bouquet, capturing the carved flesh hanging off trimmed ribs.  Blood dripped from the edge of the flowers.   A few gobbets of flesh hung from the edges of the flower petals, where the victim's writhing had caused Alice's hand to slip.   

                "Of course," Alice said, smirking at the screen, "you _do _have to clean up the trash."  

                Clarice sat up.  This wasn't going to be good, whatever it was.  Alice reached under the table and produced a machete.  She waggled it at the camera.  The poor schmuck under her bucked and twisted at the sight of it.  Besides Clarice, Josh closed his eyes and glanced away.  

                Alice held the machete two-handed.  She brought it down sharply.  There was a wet _thunk _and then the guy on the table stopped moving.  A spray of blood jetted from the stump of his severed neck.  Alice picked up the head and stepped away from the severed trunk.  Blood pattered on the floor.  Some got on her arm, but she didn't appear to notice.  She brandished the severed head at the camera.  

                "That's all the time we have," she said  "Join us next week on _Marcia Skewer Killing,_ when I'll show you how to make a _lovely _vase out of this head."  The camera cut to black, displaying the words _Marcia Skewer Killing.  This has been a Homicidal Production.  Copyright 2004.  _

Clarice felt nausea staining the back of her throat with acidic vapor.  This was simply insane.  They were killing people, having fun doing it, and _filming _it.  Then to top it off, they were sending the tapes to the people pursuing them.  

                There was a faint _click _as Crawford turned the lights on.  He faced both his agents and looked calmly at them.  

                "Okay," he said.  "What are you thinking?"  

                _That Alice Pierpont is a thousand times crazier than her father ever was, _Clarice thought.  But that wouldn't help.  

                "Well," she said.  "They're obviously cocky.  The fact that they're continuing to send videotapes tells us that they think they can get away with it.  But they're not _that _cocky.  Do we know where it came from?"  

                "Baltimore postmark," Crawford replied.  

                "They're not _in _Baltimore, then.  Probably out of town.  Alice commented in the last movie that their second production – this one – was 'in the can'. They made this to have something to hold us over while they moved.  I'd bet there's going to be nothing at all for a few days, maybe a week.  They need to get out of town, set up shop, and film their next movie."  

                Crawford shrugged.  "I need something to help catch them," he said drily.  

                Clarice pressed her lips together.  She _did _have something.  "Do we know Alice Pierpont's bipolar cycle?" she asked.  

                Crawford tilted his head.  

                "She's bipolar.  We may be able to use that to catch her," Clarice explained.  "Her depressive phases aren't long.  But when she's down, she's _down."  _Her throat hitched a bit, remembering her captivity at the mentally ill woman's hands.  "It'll be hard to get her to do anything, especially if she's off her meds, and I bet she is."  As she thought about it, the possibility looked better and better.  

                "Right now she's ramping up," Clarice continued.  "When she gets to the high point, she's totally jazzed and she'll be bouncing off the walls.  But when that happens, they won't be able to get her to do much _either, _but for different reasons. She'll be bouncing off the walls.  Like a little kid."  

                Josh nodded solemnly, realizing what she was talking about.  "She'll have trouble traveling when she's down, and when she's up, she'll behave oddly and maybe stick out."  

                Crawford considered.  "Not a bad idea," he said judiciously, chewing the inside of his cheek like a cud.  "Good work, Starling.  Any ideas on where she'd be going?"                  

                Clarice thought.  "There's the obvious," she said.  

                "Which is?" Crawford's voice was challenging.  

                "Where anyone goes if they want to make movies," Clarice said.  "Hollywood."  

                …

                The Burger King was busy.  Its location by the side of the Interstate guaranteed for brisk trade.  Hungry travelers would stop, grab some burgers, and head on their way, leaving this small chunk of rural Pennsylvania far behind.  No one paid any particular interest to the trio that stopped in that day.  

                All Chatiqua wanted was some food.  There would be no killing today; a Whopper would satisfy her hunger.  She waited in line with more patience than she was accustomed to.  She was pleased.  Her vision was rapidly coming true.  Her first visions had been simple practices.  She knew that she _could _create.  She was more than a mere camerawoman.  She'd known this from the first few movies she had filmed.  She was a director.  Her visions might be viewed as shocking and scandalous, but then again, so had Stanley Kubrick's.  And Chatiqua's plans made the movie _A Clockwork Orange _look like a kiddie movie.  

                She fumbled out the piece of paper on which she'd scribbled down what her actors wanted.  _Her _actors.  She liked thinking of them that way.  She'd known back when she was twelve and had first met Alice that they could do great things together.  Back then, they'd been inseparable.  Race and class meant nothing.  They were two people who understood each other.  

                They'd both been in for violent crimes, and so the authorities had made them both attend anger-management classes and group therapies before they were eligible for release.  Memories swirled through her mind as she waited in line.  How they'd made fun of the therapist behind her back!   _You need to learn positive coping skills.  Lashing out with violence only creates more victims. When you get angry, try hitting a pillow or counting to ten. _

Once, Alice had whispered in her ear that Dr. Thompson's idea of positive coping skills probably included the liberal use of marijuana.  _You need to learn positive coping skills, Teek.  When you get angry, just do a few big bong hits.  Then you'll be too baked to lash out with violence, man. _ After that, all one girl had to do was purse her lips and inhale sharply while the hippyish psychiatrist was talking with her back turned and the other would break into hysterical giggles.  

                It was silly, anyway.  Positive coping skills meant little in a world in which everyone else existed largely for your own personal amusement.  Only rare ones like Colin and Alice were worth anything to Chatiqua; everyone else was fodder for her vision.  They weren't flesh.  They were merely light and sound and airy material, and when they died the world did not change one iota for their passing.  

                But for now her hungers were more jejune.  No one need die for her artistic vision today; a few burgers would do her fine.  She got up to the line and eyed the clerk.  Colin wanted a bacon double cheeseburger.  Mmmm, his arteries would start hardening before they even got back in the car.  Alice wanted a chicken sandwich, as if that was any healthier than the burgers.  Chatiqua ordered a Whopper for herself.   

                The clerk had a scatter of pimples across his forehead, covered none too successfully by his Burger King baseball hat.  Chatiqua's nose wrinkled.  He would never do for the camera.  He was just too ugly.  The image of his face being forced into the deep-fat fryer occurred to her.  _That _would leave bigger red marks.  Then again, no.  Whoever did the deed would need gloves.  Colin would be good for that.  It was time for him to have a feature of his own.  Alice had worked hard on her features, but Colin would want something of his own.  

                They were her actors.  It was her responsibility to keep them happy, so much as she was able to.  She was in charge, but she needed them to achieve her vision.  Chatiqua would take care of her actors.  She'd done it before, back in the detention center, when Alice got all mopey and sad for a couple of days like she often did.  

                So she handed the clerk a rumpled twenty.  Alice had tons of money, fortunately, and she was grateful to the people who had set her free.  If she was willing to keep the purse strings relatively lax, Chatiqua thought, they might be able to afford a better budget for their productions.  He rang it up and handed her back some limp bills and dirty change.  A few minutes later she was provided with a brown tray covered with paper-wrapped burgers, French fry containers, and waxed paper cups.  

                Where had they gone to sit?  Oh, over in the back.  That made sense; if the FBI happened to track them here they'd be able to see them.  She and Colin had always been armed, and she made sure Alice had a gun too.

                Alice was talking, her face animated, as Chatiqua approached.  Her eyes were fixed on Colin and she was smiling.  Neither of them looked over as she crossed the distance to the table. 

                "So, anyway," she was saying.  "After I got the guy in my basement, I sawed his hand off.  Then I dumped him on Starling's porch and set him on fire!"  She laughed merrily, as if the murder of James Winfield had been great fun.  And of course, for her it had been.  "It was a _tremendous _effect.  It had the effect I wanted, all right.  She was freaked.  Should've filmed that.  Maybe we can do a remake." 

                "Wow," Colin said.  "That sounds like a lot of fun.  We'll have to try that."

                They finally did look up at her as she placed the tray on the table.  Chatiqua frowned.  Ever since she could remember, she had been _other.  _Her parents had never quite known how to deal with her.  She had always been outside, fenced out, not like the others.  Other people cared about each other; no one had really cared for her.  She had grown up clinically aware of her cold heart but unable to do anything to warm it.  

                The only people she had ever felt connected with were the two people sitting at the table.  First Alice, who had been her friend and confidante in a place where friends were at a premium.  Then Colin, who had been the only one at the company she worked for that had actually harbored darker tastes.  

                They glanced up as she sat down. Alice smiled pleasantly.  

                "Hi, Teek," she said.  "Thanks for getting the food."  

                It was invisible and it was subtle, but it was still there.  It was they and she.  The lines had been quietly redrawn and now she was on the outside again.  Chatiqua's eyes narrowed.  Alice seemed surprised.  

                "I was just telling Colin about some things I'd done," Alice said brightly.  "Come on.  Sit down.  Let's eat."  She patted the seat next to her.  For a moment Chatiqua found herself wondering if she was being oversensitive.  People had told her she was that way sometimes.  

                _It's just nothing, _Chatiqua thought as she sat down.  She passed out the food and they set to eating hungrily.  No one wanted to waste time, and the lines seemed to redraw to include her again as if she had never been excluded.  _Nothing at all. _ _It **better **be.  _ 


	8. On the Prowl

                _Author's note:  Yes, here I am, and I'm not dead.  Just writer's block on this and working on originals. But here we are…_

                To Alice, this was all _very _amusing.  After two years of deprivation and confinement, being free was just _great.  _She had friends, freedom, and money.  In her home had been enough cash to ensure that finances wouldn't be a problem for the time being.  

                That alone would have explained why she felt good.  But she felt better than good.  She felt _great!  _She was ready to dance, sing, and shout.  But Teek didn't want her to, so she simply sprawled out in the back seat and wanted to bounce off the walls of the car and thought her heart might burst.  The car was confining, so she bounced in her seat excitedly.

                "Teeeeeeek," she caroled from the back seat.  "When are we going to be filming agaaaaain?"  

                Behind the wheel, Chatiqua sighed.  Colin chuckled and looked back at her from the shotgun seat.  She'd been bouncy like this ever since they'd hit the road that morning.

                "Patience, girl, patience," Chatiqua counseled.  She smiled ruefully.  "Jeez, when you get happy, you get _happy."  _

                "Happy, happy, joy, joy," Alice concurred.  "Let's start filming."  

                The Escort's tires grumbled over the tarmac.  Chatiqua sighed again.  "We need some things first," she said.  "For one thing, we need a midget."  

                "Happy happy, joy joy, happy happy joy joy, happy happy joy joy, happy happy, joy joy, happy happy happy happy happy happy joy joy joy!" Alice sang from the back seat.  

                Chatiqua's shoulders twitched and her hands tightened on the wheel.  "Alice," she said.  Her voice was on edge.  

                "Midget midget, joy joy, midget midget joy joy," Alice started, and then looked down with mock guilt.  "What are we gonna do with a midget anyway?  Where do you _get _a midget?  Midgets-R-Us?" 

                "I was thinking about an LPA meeting, actually," Chatiqua said.  "I found out where one is.  We'll get ourselves a midget."  

                "Are they gonna ride with me in the back seat or will we stick them in the trunk?  Do regular handcuffs fit on midgets or are we gonna need little ones?  How come it sounds like your teeth are gritted, Teek?" Alice asked merrily.  "Okay, _fine, _I won't sing anymore.  Let's see this script."  From her tone of voice, giving up her musical urges was done only with the greatest of reluctance.  But she would do it for her friends in the spirit of noble sacrifices.   Pages flapped as she flipped through today's script.  

                "This is interesting," Alice added after a minute.  "It's not like what we've been doing before, though."  She examined the script.  "Six victims?  Wow, that's a lot."  

                "It'll all be set up beforehand," Teek said.  "Then we need a Renaissance fair and a grassy field.  And a paddock somewhere for the fun scenes."  

                "The _fuuuuuun _scenes," Alice agreed.  

                At the next exit, Chatiqua put on her blinker and got off the highway.  She grabbed a piece of paper and consulted it.  

                "Okay," she said confidently.  "There's a Little People of America meeting at a hotel here.  We show up, say we're looking for a dwarf for a movie, and see what we get."  

                "I thought you said midget before," Alice said.  

                Chatiqua sighed.  Colin snickered.  

                "You don't _say _midget to them," Chatiqua said.  "Apparently they find it insulting."  

                Alice pondered that for a moment before grinning brightly.  "How come 'midget' is insulting but 'dwarf' isn't?" she asked.  "I mean, there was never a movie about Snow White and the Seven Midgets."  

                "They just find it insulting, that's all," Chatiqua said, feeling her teeth clench.  "I don't know why.  But don't ask them, OK?   Let's not stick out here."  

                Alice was silent for a few minutes.  The car turned onto the city streets and began heading for its destination.  Like a cat, Alice waited for the right moment to pounce.  

                "Well, _midget midget midget!" _Alice sang out merrily.  The car slewed in its lane as Chatiqua jerked.  Next to him, Colin began to laugh.  Chatiqua turned around and glared at the unrepentant woman in the back seat.  

                "Girl, _knock it off," _she said.  

                "What?  It's a free country," Alice said archly.  "I can say midget if I want to."  

                "I am gonna send you back to the asylum," Chatiqua threatened.  "Now cut it out.  You're driving me crazy."  

                A look of mock horror crossed Alice's face.  She threw an arm dramatically against her forehead.  

                "Oh…_please…._ Miss Teek, show mercy," she cried.  "Don't send me back to that mean old asylum.  I won't say midget any more, I promise you.  Show mercy to a lost little girl such as I.   I want to be good.  Really I do!  I strive and yearn for a virtuous life.  But I cannot help myself."  

                Chatiqua snickered herself.  "Now that is overacting," she lectured.  

                "It's supposed to be," Alice said obligingly.  "I can be subtle when I want to be, Teek.  I promise I'll be good."  

                And she was good.  When they pulled up at the hotel in which the meeting was being held, she was calm and professional as they explained what they wanted.  They had a music video they planned to shoot and sought a little person.  All the while, Alice was calm and cool and did not say the word 'midget'.  She waited for that until they had their selected victim spirited away and handcuffed in the trunk.  

                They had their actor.  All they needed now was a site to shoot and some victims.  

…

                Clarice was surprised.  

                She was standing in Alice Pierpont's basement for the first time in two years.  Some local Baltimore boys were searching the house, and there was already quite the media circus outside.  Fortunately, Alice's property was large enough that they could keep the press at bay.  The search warrant for the premises stated that the entire grounds were covered, and so the TV crews and reporters had to stay off the grounds or risk arrest.  

                She was surprised for a few reasons.  For one thing, she had expected that returning to the room where she had once been held captive would frighten her.   She had been kept in a cage here for a week and a half.  She had been tortured physically and mentally here.  This was the only place in recent memory where Clarice Starling had actually feared for her life.  Surely she would feel something on returning to this place.  

                But it was the same as a thousand other crime scenes.  She felt…nothing.  This was a place where a crime had been committed, and it was her job to check it out and see what clues she could divine.  Emotionally, the basement was a burnt-out lightbulb, an empty wastebasket.  Negative.  Empty.  Just…there.  

                The other reason she was surprised was that the basement was quite different.  Sheetrock had been placed along one side to make the hallway that they had seen in the 'Clarice' section of the previous video.  Then there were the two cells.  It was easy to forget that only twenty yards away was where she had been locked up and terrorized; nothing looked the same.  

                Josh Graham glanced into the cells with a curious eye.  She watched him carefully.  It was amazing what he could come up with sometimes.  The past two years had taught him a lot.  

                "They had to have drugged the guy in there, or restrained him," he said softly.  "Look.  This is built of sheet rock.  You couldn't keep someone in a cell like this."  

                He stopped then, as if aware that he might remind Clarice that she had been kept in a cage made of steel within a few running paces of here.  She simply waved it away.  

                "Good," she said calmly.  From a plastic case next to her she took a container of Dragon's Blood – bright red fingerprint powder.  Dusting it carefully on the sheetrock walls might give them fingerprints.  They had Chatiqua's name, but any extra proof helped, and they needed to put a name to that orderly who had shot Agent Hemd.  

                "The kitchen is definitely where the Marcia Skewer thing was shot," Josh said.  "Matches up exactly.  Plus the kitchen table lit up like a Christmas tree when they put Luminol on it.  The earth is disturbed in the back yard.  That's probably where they buried the victims.  We're calling in a forensics team to dig it up."  

                She nodded.  "Good work, Josh."  

                "I also found something she left," Josh said quizzically, and held up a sheet of paper.  On it, in script she recognized as Alice's, was a short note.  

                _Dear Josh, _

_                I know you'll find this immediately.  I know I get sarcastic at times, but I hope you're OK and I'm glad Clarice is too. Shooting her was not part of the plan that I knew of.  But I've got to be going; there's nothing you'll find here that's useful.  But have fun! _

_                Remember the bedroom, Josh?  That might bring back some memories. _

_                A.P._

Clarice found herself oddly affected by the letter.  It was usual Alice, sarcastic and dangerous on one hand.  Yet under it, Clarice never could shake the idea that there was a sad, lonely person who desperately wanted to be liked under it all.  She'd seen both sides.

                "Okay," she said.  "Look.  Here are some prints.  Help me get 'em."  

                Very carefully, the two FBI agents began to lift the prints from the piece of sheetrock.   Clarice was pleased.  They were good prints.  She could tell that just by looking.  

                "All right," she said.  "Let's go back and run these."  

                Josh shrugged.  "Don't you want to stay?" he asked. 

                Clarice shook her head.  "The forensics team here is top-notch," she said.  "They'll get pictures and all that for us. Let's see if we can put a name to these prints."  So they headed out to the car and left Alice's home to the forensics team.  Clarice took the wheel; she liked driving, and Josh didn't seem to care terribly much either way.  

                As they picked up the expressway back to Quantico, Josh let out a reflective sigh.  

                "Something up?" Clarice asked. 

                "It was just…weird to go back there," Josh said.  "You know.  That's where she lived."  

                _And that's where we lived for a bit, _Clarice thought.  But the house had seemed empty of its prior occupant.  No evil had soaked into the floorboards and timbers of the house.  Or the basement, for that matter.  

                "I guess," Clarice said, studiously studying the road ahead.  "To me it was just another crime scene."  

                Josh shrugged.  "If that's how it was for you," he said simply, as if Clarice was somehow insensitive.  

                "Do you still think about her?" Clarice probed.  

                Josh shrugged again.  "How could I _not?" _he asked.  "I remember what she did to you and me.  She's dangerous, and she's out there.  We've got to get her."  

                Clarice nodded and pressed her lips together.  She knew all about _that.  _Whether Alice was genuinely evil or not was irrelevant.  A rabid dog might not be evil, but you didn't let it bite innocent people.  

                Once back at Quantico, they got lucky.  Running the fingerprints popped up a match.  Clarice grinned.  

                "Gotcha," she said.  "Look here.  Colin Barksdale, DOB 5/10/1980.  Arrested six months ago for a felony B&E.  Charges dismissed."  She grinned savagely.  "But we got him.  Definitely enough for an APB."  

                To fill out the paperwork for an all-points-bulletin was not that hard.  Clarice was satisfied.  Alice, Colin, and Chatiqua. A happy little criminal family.  For a moment she wondered if Colin was as crazy as the two women were.  

                _Hmmm…two women, one man.  I wonder if that's going to stress things out.  Both the women in question are sociopaths.  Jealousy may become an issue.  Maybe that's something we should look out for.  A black woman, a white woman, and a white guy aren't unheard of.  Maybe there will be problems in paradise.  _

Satisfied with herself, Clarice glanced at the clock. Four-forty-five.  She decided to reward herself for putting a name to the third accomplice by knocking off early.  After all, she had the case files at home, and she could work just as easily there.  

                So she bid Josh good night and headed out to her Mustang.  As she drove home, she found herself pondering.  

                _We need a break, _she thought.  _It isn't enough to get their videos and analyze them.  I need something to help me get ahead of the curve.  I have to figure out where they're gonna hit next.  It's hard; we know they went back to Alice's place, but I don't have any other familiar places they might go.  Not even Alice is loony enough to go back to juvenile hall.  _

That conundrum occupied her mind for the rest of the night.  Her early day off proved to be a late night in front of her own computer, staring at the files and trying to think of something. She left her .45 on the coffee table in her living room, tired of it digging into her side.  Outside, the day darkened to dusk and became night without her realizing it.  

                When the front door opened, she thought at first it was Ardelia.  She paid it no heed.  If 'Delia wanted something she'd come over to Clarice's side of the duplex.  They knew better than to stand on ceremony.  They'd lived together long enough.

                Then there was a sudden rush of disturbed air in the room.  Clarice sat up and looked over at her .45.  But before she could do more than look, a hand snaked around her, pinning her wrist to the armrest.  Another arm glided easily around her throat.  The sharp point of a knife pressed her windpipe in warning. 

                "Hello, Clarice," a voice said calmly.  "Good to see you again." 


	9. The Perils of Coarse Language

                _Author's note: Yes, this story has been going slow.  R+R, that's always appreciated.  For now, Clarice and the GD have a meeting, but it isn't exactly romantic…_

                Clarice tensed.  She sat in her desk chair with someone standing above and behind her.  Her right hand was effectively pinned to the arm of her chair.  Another arm was snaked around her neck.  She could feel the point of a knife pressing into the soft skin of her throat.  Above her she could smell cologne. 

                "Dr. Lecter?" she asked to the unseen figure. 

                A male chuckle came from above.  "Why, yes, Clarice.  It's been a while." 

                Her muscles were electric with tension.  What was he doing here?  What did he want?  For that matter, what did he want from her?  Ardelia was on a date with some guy up in Cape May; she wouldn't be back for hours.  Clarice was alone.

                "Clarice," he said calmly, "I should like to speak with you about…certain arrangements."  

                She swallowed.  She'd thought about him for years.  Yet having him here in her house was terrifying.  Clarice Starling was as protective of her home as anyone else.  How had he gotten in?  She'd have to find out.  Serial killers invading one's home was not a good thing.  

                Was he here for her, or was he here to help his daughter?  Memories of being in Alice's home struck her.  He had gotten her out of the cage and brought her upstairs.  At the time, she'd been so starved and confused.  _Clarice, you really should consider…is this what you want out of life? _

But now her thoughts were clearer.  She was pursuing his daughter, and he had the knife, so she had to be careful.  For now, she had to consider him an enemy.  Perhaps he'd played a role in his daughter's escape.  It would hardly be unexpected of him.

                "Can I stand up, Dr. Lecter?" she asked carefully.  

                Above her, he chuckled unseen.  "Very well, Clarice."  

                He stepped aside.  The knife moved from her throat.  Very carefully, Clarice stood.  She planned out what she was going to so.  Lunge for his right hand with her left.  Try to get him to drop the knife.  Otherwise, she would simply hold onto it to keep him from stabbing her.  Then she would draw her .45 with her right hand, put the gun to him, and get the cuffs on him.  

                She thought about these things for a half of a second, then she lunged. __

The struggle was short and quick.  Clarice Starling was trained to fight, but Dr. Lecter was quicker and more brutal.  She'd never gone up against someone quite like him.  He seemed to have an instinctive grasp of grappling; his hands and legs moved too quickly for her to follow, let alone recalculate and prevail.  The .45 was in her hand, and then vanished as neatly as any magician had ever made something disappear. 

_What the hell? _Clarice thought. 

  She ended up bent over his lap. His left hand pinned both of her wrists; his right leg pinned her legs down.  She didn't like the vulnerable position and fought.  

                "Goddam it," she spat, "you let me up _this fucking minute"_

"Please, Clarice.  Potty mouth shall get you nowhere."  

Then there was a sharp, stinging pain from her buttocks.  The pain was well within her ability to deal; it was the realization of what he had done that shocked her speechless.  He'd spanked her.  Pinned her down and bent her over his knee and spanked her as if she was a little girl.  

                "What the fuck?" she asked, staring at him incredulously, face flushing red with humiliation.  

                _Whack.  Whack.  _"Clarice, you naughty girl," he purred, "if you persist with this childish behavior, you'll suffer a childish punishment."  He chuckled.  

                Frustration and anger flooded her bloodstream.  She'd been an FBI agent for years.  She had given nothing to any man in drive or technique.  She had worked to keep herself as strong as she could possibly be.  

                Yet here she was, sprawled across a serial killer's lap, and he was spanking her for using dirty words, no less.  To make it worse, he was obviously _quite _amused by all this.  He wasn't angry nor was he even out of breath.  The son of a bitch was patronizingly _amused _by what he was doing, as if she was a clever six-year-old.  It was infuriating.  

                She struggled in his grip, her lips skinning back from her teeth.  She would show him _amusement._  For a moment the idea of biting him occurred to her.  But even in her anger, she knew better than that.  

                "Stop hitting me, goddam you," she snarled.  

                _Whack.  _"Honestly, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said nonchalantly, grinning widely.  "I realize you never went to charm school, but really.  I assure you my hand can keep up with your tongue."  

                Part of her wanted to curse like a drunken sailor, just to show her defiance.  But that wasn't getting her anything more than a stinging bottom.   Anger coursed through her veins.  Her anger was just providing him with more amusement, and knowing that made her want to scream.  

                "Fine," she spat.  

                Dr. Lecter chuckled.  "Now then.  Where were we?  I was suggesting that perhaps you might be amenable to a bargain."  

                _Like hell, _Clarice thought, but did not dare say it.  For now he was satisfying himself with a bit of petty humiliation.  Keeping it up might urge him to try more.  

                "What sort of bargain?" she asked, fighting to keep the bitterness out of her voice.  His hand held her wrists together as firmly as if they were handcuffed.  

                His tone of voice changed, as if they were discussing this over tea.  "Actually," Dr. Lecter said, "it _is _in regards to my daughter.  Perhaps I could help you find her, along with her compatriots." 

                Her lips twisted.   If anyone could figure out what the hell the three psychos were doing, he would be the one.  There had to be some pattern amid the chaos that they could use to track them.  

                But she was angry.  Angry that her sympathy to Alice had resulted in her escape.  Angry that innocents had died because Alice was free.  And more recently, she was angry that Dr. Lecter had invaded her house, flipped her over his lap and spanked her like a five-year-old.  

                "And what would you want in return?" she asked, trying to crane her neck to glare at him.  

                Dr. Lecter paused.  "Well," he said, still calm as a glacier, "allow me to take my daughter off your hands.  You may have the other two; they mean nothing to me.  You'll have your killers.  I assure you, I shall take Alice far from these shores.  She shan't trouble you again."  

                The sheer gall of the man amazed her.  His daughter had suckered her into setting her free, killed people, and he expected her to let Alice _go?  _To add insult to injury, he came in her house and overpowered her and he expected her to deal with him? 

                "You must be out of your _fucking _mind," Clarice said vehemently, and then flinched as soon as the words were out of her mouth.  

                Another flat _crack, _another sting, another wave of seething, helpless anger.  Clarice growled deep in her throat.  She glared at him openly.  

                "I assure you I am not, Clarice," he said gently.  "Think now.  Can you discern a pattern amongst the chaos?  Can you tell where they will strike next?  Help me now, Clarice, and I will help you.  All I ask is to take my daughter."  He sighed, as if a moment's regret was spoiling his fun.  "She's troubled, Clarice.  I assure you, never more will innocents be threatened."  

                Clarice twisted again.  God, his hands were so strong.  

                "No," she grumbled.  "I'll put her away and you too.  And she's not schizophrenic, _doctor.  _Who taught her to fake it?  It was you, wasn't it?"  

                Dr. Lecter sighed.  "Clarice, if you don't help me, then I'm afraid I'll search her out on my own.  And I'll find her before you do."  

                "My ass you will," Clarice snarled, her heart racing.  She knew it was coming, so she simply stared at him, letting him know that he hadn't won entirely.  _Whack.  _Sting.  She choked off her anger as amusement painted over the prior regret on his face.  

                "Come now, Clarice," Dr. Lecter chided.  "Part of you loves this, doesn't it?"  

                _Loves this?  He thinks I love this?  He **is **crazy, _Clarice thought.  

                "Let me up," she grumbled.  Cussing was only getting her a sore rump; she would express her contempt in her tone.  "And no, I do _not _love this.  In any way shape or form.  In case you were wondering."  

                He chuckled again and shook his head.  "Oh, my, Clarice," he said lightly, "I told you once.  You really need to get more fun out of life.  Now be a good girl; is that the file on your computer screen?"  

                She tensed again, but it was useless.  His grip was like nothing human.  She couldn't get away.  But she wouldn't give it to him either.  "I won't tell you," she said, and smiled rebelliously.

                "As you wish, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said, and reached across.  From her belt he plucked the handcuffs with the nimble fingers of a master thief.  To lock one cuff to her wrist took only a moment, and despite Clarice's struggles, he managed to get the other cuff locked to the wooden arm of the couch without much ado.  The ratchets rasped closed, pinning her in place.

                Dr. Lecter rose and walked across the room to where the PC's monitor cast a pale light over the room.  He sat down at the computer.  From his pocket, he produced a small object about as long as his thumb, but slightly thicker and flatter.  He had bought this at a computer shop not far away for cash.  

                He removed the cap, exposing a standard USB port.  Plugging the device into Clarice's computer took only a moment.  The computer recognized and installed the device in a few moments, dubbing it Drive F with all appropriate rights and privileges associated with that title.  

 With a few taps on the keyboard, Dr. Lecter transferred the contents of the file to the flash drive.  It held a gigabyte of storage, and the contents of the CD-ROM she had brought home fit easily onto that.  In a few minutes it was done, and he plucked the flash drive from her computer and dropped it into his pocket.  He winked at her and rose.  

"You disappoint me, I must say," he said.  "I had hoped for…more.  I'm sorry it had to come to this, Clarice…but admit it, we had a lot of fun."  

Under other circumstances, Clarice might have thought it was witty.  As it was, she was angry enough to spit.  She glared openly at him with no fear of the consequences.  

He set his fedora at a jaunty angle and strode purposefully to the sliding glass door.   It rasped open.  For a moment, Clarice wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.  Getting out of the handcuffs wasn't the hard part; she was good at hiding handcuff keys on her person.  As soon as he was away she could open the cuffs and escape.  No, it wasn't that.  What was she supposed to tell Josh and Crawford?  _Dr. Lecter broke into my house and stole the Homicidal Productions file.  Oh, and he spanked me for using dirty words. _Yeah, that would go over well.

 Before he disappeared through the portal, he winked at her again.  When he spoke, his voice was jaunty, as if he had dropped by for scones and jam.  Damn him. 

"I do thank you for helping Alice," he said mildly.  "Mercy is not always a weakness.  And perhaps you can forgive her, and perhaps even me.  I asked you once how far you could forgive, Clarice.  That answer _still _interests me more than you would know."  

Then the door rasped as he slid it shut, and he was gone.  

She reached into her skirt pocket for where she customarily kept a handcuff key and opened her manacles.  Once free of the handcuffs and his immediate presence, she had a moment to think about what she wanted to do.  Screaming, punching the wall, and perhaps knocking down the neighbor's house with a bulldozer seemed like satisfying outlets.  She settled for the first two.  Hot anger burned the back of her neck and her cheeks. 

The _nerve _of the man.  How _dare _he think she would let his daughter go?  After what he had done?  Crawford's voice spoke ghostly words in her mind:  _Dr. Lecter likes his fun.  _He sure did.  

A persistent electronic tone interrupted her fuming.  Clarice glanced over at her cell phone, trilling calmly from the desk.  She sat down at the desk with her head in her hands, letting it ring twice, forcing herself to calm down.  Then she grabbed it and pressed the TALK button.  

"Starling," she said, in a tone that sounded far calmer than she felt.  

"Hi, Starling, it's Graham."  

Clarice sighed and wiped her nose.  "Hi, Josh," she said calmly.  _I just got spanked by someone on the Ten Most-Wanted List.  How's **your **night going?  _

"We've got a lead on them," he said.  "Just like you said.  Someone saw Alice bouncing around and acting weird.  It's at a Renaissance fair in Ohio."  

Clarice snorted.  At least there was something Dr. Lecter didn't have.  Until the damn _Tattler _got ahold of it and spread it across the front page.  

"Good," she said.  "Let's go check it out."  

"Crawford's got us plane tickets.  Our flight leaves at six in the morning."  He sighed himself.  "Um….," he began diffidently.  

"Just say it, Josh," she said resignedly.  

"They're not there.  But they can't be far. They were spotted just this afternoon.  Local boys are looking for them.  And there's another videotape at the scene."


	10. Suspicions & Duty

                _Author's note:  Thanks to Morbid for giving me an idea on this – it had gotten a bit stalled.  For her benefit, this chapter is largely told from Josh's point of view.  Catch her if she swoons, if you please; bumps on the head can be nasty. _

                Josh Graham sat in a small airline seat and pondered.  The seat was cramped, and he was not comfortable in it.  Clarice had the window seat; she wanted it and he didn't care.  He wanted to focus on the case.  Besides, she was senior to him and so she should get her pick of seats.  

                The airline tray was pretty small, but it served well enough for his purposes.  In one hand he held the stapled-together sheets that constituted Alice Pierpont's payment for her transport to and from the funeral.  She had agreed to take the survey, and Clarice had demanded she do it beforehand.  Since her escape, it had sort of gotten shunted to the side of things.   Now that they were flying into Ohio, he had time to look at it.  

                He wondered idly what sort of carnage Alice had caused now.  He knew all too well what he was capable of.  For a moment his eyes dimmed as he remembered the events of two years ago.

                It was said of some people that still waters ran deep.  So it was with the men of the Graham family.  Will Graham had been physically attacked by Hannibal Lecter, not once but twice.     Will Graham's son had not suffered the same insults from Hannibal Lecter's daughter.   Instead, she had kidnapped him and then forced him to play her boyfriend.  Physically, his captivity had been much more comfortable than Clarice's.  Alice had been nonchalant about feeding Clarice during her incarceration.  She'd always ensured he ate well.  

                But what she _had _done had taken a while for him to grasp.  She had become fascinated with him and then she had violated him.  It had been a difficult concept to grasp.  

                What was worse, for him, was the realization that she had not done so malevolently.  Dr. Hannibal Lecter had been known for his cruel, cutting observations and comments.  He knew exactly what he was doing.  His troubled daughter did not.  In her own way, she had wanted Josh to like her.  Perhaps more; he had tried not to think about it.  

                But for now, she was out, and it was his job to capture her and bring her to justice.  Whether that was through bringing her back to the asylum she had been held in or if she would face trial was not his concern.  She was at large and he would capture her.  

                Josh perused the survey as the large plane cruised slowly over heartland America.  Alice's script was surprisingly girlish, nothing like her father's freakishly regular copperplate.  From what he could tell, her answers were honest.  At least he didn't get the feeling she was lying.  

                There it was.  _Please describe your relationship with your mother.  _He had seen enough of these to know what to expect.  Alice's reply had been simple if cutting.  _My mother is a hateful sociopath.  Growing up, she had no interest in me.  I have not seen her since I left home, and don't want to.  _

_                Please describe your relationship with your father.  _

_                As you people already know, my biological father is Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  I did not know him growing up.  He was in the asylum by the time I was born and never knew about me.  He did not know I existed until my attempt to contact him.  _

_                On the other hand, by the time you read this, I will be free, and we'll be working on building a relationship.  I'll let you know how that goes._

Josh started in the confines of the airline seat.  Surprise flooded him.  Had Dr. Lecter had a hand in freeing his daughter?  Was Alice trying to meet her father again? Was _that _it?   He glanced over at Clarice, who was staring out the window.  She glanced back at him wordlessly.  

                "Look at this," he said.  Clarice craned her neck.  He pointed it out to her.   "She told us what she was doing in her survey.  She's looking for him."  

                Clarice's eyebrows rose.  "Really?" she asked.  

                "Yes.  Maybe that's what she's planning.  Just like last time.  And she _told _us right here!"  He tapped the paper excitedly.  The phone latched firmly into the seat in front of him caught his eye.  He grabbed it and pulled it free.  "Do you have an FBI credit card?  We need to call Crawford.  We need to monitor the _International Herald-Tribune.  _We also ought to see if we can find anything else, maybe at the asylum.  Some other way she might have of contacting him, since Dr. Lecter will know that the agony column method is compromised."  

                Clarice began to fumble in her purse.  "Nice catch, Josh," she said absently.  "I never caught that one."    

                Another idea struck Josh between the eyes.  "Wait," he said.  "What if Dr. Lecter knows she's out?  What if he's coming to try and get her?" 

                Clarice paused for a moment.  The ghost of an angry expression flickered over her face for just a moment.  

                "You think he would?" Clarice asked with the barest hint of a challenge in her voice.  

                "He might," Josh said.  "It might just be Alice sending us on a snipe hunt, but it might be real, too.  Look, you were saying that Alice wasn't schizophrenic, even though that's what the doctors diagnosed her as.  She never showed schizophrenic behavior before.  But she was good enough to fool two court-appointed psychiatrists.   Somebody had to have shown her how to do that.  What if that somebody was Lecter?"  

                Clarice hissed air between her teeth. "I don't know, Josh," she said softly.

 Josh frowned.  Why was she resistant to the idea?  She didn't still have feeling for Dr. Lecter, did she?  For Christ's sake, the guy was a serial killer.  Josh felt sorry for Alice, and he didn't think she was completely responsible for what she had done to him, but he didn't love her.  

"It's worth looking into," Josh said.  "Look.  Either Dr. Lecter knows she's out or he doesn't.  I'm inclined to think he does.  He knew when she…well, from her first time.   He came up here for you."  

A mixture of pain and anger crossed Clarice's face.  "That doesn't mean he'd do it again," she said archly.  

"I think he would," Josh insisted.  "And if he did…," his eyes moved up.  "He might know where they're going.  But I'm not sure he does.  If he'd planned the whole thing from start to finish, they would have gotten Alice out the door and no one would've heard anything.  It would've been all underground, and Alice would've been quietly smuggled out of the country somewhere."  

"Josh, you're sort of building castles in the air there," Clarice said softly.  "All you know is that Alice said she was going to meet her father.  You don't know what…Dr. Lecter has in mind."  

Yet he was unwilling to let his pet idea go so quickly.  Why was Clarice objecting to it?  His mind continued to jump from point to point.  It had always helped him track his prey.  Now it might help him catch both.  

"Okay," he said.  His eyes were blank, his mind cranking out possibilities.  "I don't think Dr. Lecter knows what's going to happen next.  At most, he might have set things in motion.  So the first thing he's going to do is try and get as much information as he can.  Newspapers, crime-scene reports from the local boys."  

"Maybe, Josh," Clarice said tensely.  "Look, we need to examine the Homicidal Productions crime scene.  Keep your mind on that.  Don't go blueskying about Dr. Lecter.  We…we don't _know _that he was involved."  

"Heck," Josh said, not listening, "if I were him, I'd try to get my hands on the FBI file.  Everything he needs would be right in there.  And if anyone could figure out where they're going next, he would."  

Clarice opened her mouth and then closed it.  A tremor racked her body for a moment.  When she spoke, her voice was sharper than he expected it to be.  

"Josh," she said, "enough is enough.  We are not here to catch Dr. Lecter; we're here to catch Alice Pierpont and Chatiqua Miller.  Now stop."  

Josh stopped and eyed his partner gravely.  He shut his mouth.  She _was _senior to him, after all.  But he found himself doubtful besides, and all the seniority in the world could not quell that.  

Alice Pierpont had held Clarice captive for a week.  But there had been a few hours in which Clarice had been in Dr. Lecter's custody, not his daughter's.  He had gotten into the house, stabbed Josh's father, and gotten Clarice out of the cage.  That much Josh knew.  

Just exactly what Dr. Lecter had said or done to her, though…that he _didn't _know.  No one save Clarice and the good doctor did.  She had refused wholeheartedly to tell FBI debriefing personnel.  According to them, he had gotten her out of the cage, fed her, and then brought her upstairs to await the arrival of his daughter.  

An unpleasant idea eased its way into his mind.  

Clarice had been alone with Dr. Lecter.  At the time, she would have been weakened.  Lack of food, fear of her unpredictable prior captor and her just as unpredictable new captor, and the knowledge that she could not fight back against them would have forced her defenses down.  

Two years later, Alice had been safely locked up in an asylum.  There, she'd asked for Clarice.  Clarice had gone to see her; something Josh had not done himself since he'd seen her in the jail.  Alice had asked Clarice to take her to her stepfather's funeral.   Clarice had done that for her, too.  Josh had thought she was crazy for doing that.   After she'd been hurt, he'd choked off wanting to say _I told you so.  _She'd been hurt; it wasn't time to brag.

What if she wasn't crazy?  What if she was helping Dr. Lecter?  Was Clarice helping _Alice?  _

His mind told him it couldn't be.  Clarice was true-blue FBI all the way.  Her loyalty to the FBI was unquestioned.  Even when she'd had a rough time of it, she had always remained loyal.  

Even so, his mind could cough up images.  Clarice, defenseless and weak, with Dr. Lecter standing in front of her, deftly manipulating her mind.  Nothing that would make her overtly crazy, nothing that would be noticed.  Just a simple post-hypnotic suggestion.  _When my daughter needs help, Clarice, you will be there for her. _

How much damage could a rogue FBI agent do?  The answer Josh found frightening.  If Clarice was feeding Dr. Lecter information, then everything could be in jeopardy.  Alice would remain free.  For that matter, Dr. Lecter might have a bone to pick with Josh himself; Josh had shot him after all. 

His mind reeled.  It couldn't be.  As Clarice had said, he was building castles in the air. Never once through their ordeal had Josh ever suspected Clarice.  But the possibility was there.  

_It's just a possibility, _Josh told himself firmly.  _You have no reason at all to suspect Clarice of anything.  _

But he knew better.  There was the fact that Clarice had been under Dr. Lecter's control for a short period of time…and the fact that Clarice was hiding something now.  She had tried to buzz him off when the psychiatrist's name came up, and she'd gotten outright snappish when he suggested Dr. Lecter would seek out information about his daughter's current compatriots.  Wait…when he'd said the _FBI _file had everything the man would need.  

The plane began to arc downwards towards its destination.  The pilot politely asked everyone to return his or her tray table and seatback to the full upright position.  They would be landing shortly.  In seat 25B, Josh Graham put his head against the back of his seat and ticked off the particulars of his situation.

Three dangerous serial killers on the loose.  The possibility of an old and wise monster skulking around the scene.  And now even his partner was suspect.   

…

Dr. Lecter's hotel room did not suit him, and he would be glad when he as moving on.  It was clean and comfortable, but that was it.  His normal preference was for vastly larger rooms, better service, the best of everything.  Yet Clarice knew that, and he did not want her to track him.  The Holiday Inn would do for now.  The suits he had brought with him did not suit him either.  They were simple gray and blue suits, the sort of suit an official might wear.  Dr. Lecter preferred custom-made suits, single-needle tailoring, fine linings and tasteful cuts.  These suits made something in his heart weep.

His taste for the best of everything did not mean that he did without _everything.  _The laptop he had purchased upon his arrival in the United States was the top of the line.  The USB drive he had used to steal the data from Clarice's apartment plugged into the laptop easily, and he was soon reviewing the files.  

Ah, Clarice.  He hadn't planned on things going the way they had.  Speaking to her rationally would have been his preference.  But she had attacked him, and so he had to defend himself.  Her undignified position and foul language had struck his sense of whimsy, and he had gone where his whimsy suggested.  

Well, he supposed, she would get over it.  He'd done far worse to others.  Thinking back to it amused him: how red her face had gotten, and how she had fought back.  That had always been part of his interest in her; she was no submissive _hausfrau, _but she was bright enough to pick her battles.  

He tried to dismiss her from his mind as he consulted the files on the laptop.  But she would not leave so quickly.  He had to place his hands on either side of the keyboard and stop and breathe, pushing her gently out of his mind.  

The problem at hand was obvious.  He felt a responsibility to his daughter.  The others could hang for all he cared; his duty was to his daughter.  Yet he still wanted Clarice.  Was there any way he could have them both?  It seemed impossible.  Therefore, the only thing to do was to focus on his duty, leaving his desire for another day.  

To force himself to the file was not so easy.  Yet Dr. Lecter did it, his rare mind attempting to find a pattern amidst the chaos.  Where would they be going?  What did they want?  Their end result was fairly obvious: California, where they could work in peace for a while.  That was where the major studios were.  Dr. Lecter did not think the majors would hire this Chatiqua girl anytime soon, and that was a pity.  There was a crude art to her work.  But there, they could get away with a great deal and claim they were just making a movie.  

But the FBI had realized this too, and Hollywood would prove to be a trap.  He had to get to them before they reached their goal.  Otherwise, they would soon be caught.  The local authorities would be on alert.  Alice had managed to win her freedom; it was Dr. Lecter's goal to see that his errant daughter did not lose it so easily.  

Yes, there had to be something he could use here.  Something that he could do to find his daughter and spirit her away to a safe location.  Only then could he think about Clarice.


	11. False Color of Law

_                Author's note: Yes, here we are with another chapter.  For the younger ones among us, you may not remember this song, but I do.  Welcome back to the early 80's, kids…__J _

                The suit he was wearing was simply a rag, really.  Dr. Lecter's taste in clothing was the finest, as it was in everything.  His suits normally cost more than the average used car.  But this hideous monstrosity was necessary to pass.  It was gray, which he liked, and it was of medium to low cost, which he did not.  He assuaged his wounded sense of dignity with an expensive silk tie.  

                He walked across the grounds of the Renaissance fair.  It was bright and active.  A few police cars were parked at the edge of the faire grounds, jarringly out of place.  He strode calmly up to the cars and watched carefully.  There was a red-haired woman in a black gown speaking with a uniformed officer.  Perfect.  

                Was Clarice here yet?  Dr. Lecter did not think she was.  The FBI would need some amount of run time in order to obtain plane tickets.  Dr. Lecter had simply gotten in the car and driven.   Driving had only required an hour more than flying would have, and in between fudging around at the gate and the paperwork of getting tickets through a vast federal bureaucracy he knew he would arrive first.  

                Dr. Lecter strode calmly up to the uniformed officer and reached into his pocket.  He withdrew a fine black leather wallet and flipped it open.  When he spoke, his voice bore a calm, bored, Northeastern accent only slightly less precise than his normal speech.  

                Purchasing a laptop had been one of the first things Dr. Lecter did upon his arrival in the United States.  With it, he had purchased the best photo-quality inkjet printer that he could afford.  It had come with some basic graphics software, and it had not been hard to figure out enough to create himself an acceptable ID card.  

                Besides, it had given him an excuse to recall his very first meeting with Clarice.  He had sat in front on the computer, his eyes closed, while he stood in his memory palace.  How dark and dreary his cell had been!  And Clarice, young and hungry and seeking his aid, a veritable torch in the darkness of his then world.  

                He had spent more time in his memory palace than he meant to, reviewing snippets of her voice and his.  

                _Dr. Lecter, my name is Clarice Starling.  May I talk with you? _

_                May I see your identification?  Closer, please….closer….you're not real FBI, are you? _

But eventually he had to force himself to concentrate on the task at hand.  He needed to track Alice, not Clarice. 

                "Good afternoon," he said.  "My name is Agent Lewis Friend.  I'm with the FBI.  Is this young lady a witness?"  

                The uniform stared at Dr. Lecter with watery eyes.  "FBI, huh?  Sure, she saw the perps."   He jerked a thumb at the young woman.  "All right, how bout you go talk with him?"  

                "Thank you so much," Dr. Lecter assured him.  He eyed the fair-skinned redhead calmly.  She took a step towards him.  Calmly, Dr. Lecter began to stroll towards the gates of the Renaissance fair.  Compliantly, she fell into step beside him.  

                "As I said, my name is Lewis Friend, and I'm with the FBI," he said, the lie rolling easily from his tongue.  "And what is your name?"  

                "Mel," the young woman said.  "Mel Beyer."   

                "Good afternoon, Miss Beyer.  What could you tell me about what you saw?"  

                She shuddered.  "Well," she said calmly.  "At first I just saw them.  A black girl in normal clothes with a video camera just sort of stuck out, of course.  The other two looked like everybody else.  In garb, you know."  

 "And what did they look like?"  He knew already who he was looking for.  

                "One was a girl, in a white blouse and a long skirt," Mel said thoughtfully.  "She had black hair and sort of…reddish-brownish eyes.  I'd never seen eyes like that before.  Sort of scary looking."  

                _Maroon, _Dr. Lecter thought, his own maroon eyes safely hidden behind dark contact lenses.  

                  "There was something else weird about her," she continued.  "I didn't realize what it was until after they'd left.  She had an extra finger on her left hand.  But it didn't…it didn't look abnormal.  Does that make sense?"  

                Dr. Lecter's thoughts skipped briefly to his own left hand, currently buried in the pocket of the cheap suit jacket so that the scar between his fingers would not be obvious.  "Yes," he said.  "Perfect extra fingers.  It's quite rare.  What about the fellow?"  

                "Big and blocky," she said absently.  "He just had a leather jerkin and breeches and boots.  They fit in totally well.  All they did here was get some people to dance and appear in their movie."  

                "Did you appear in it?"  

                She shrugged.  "Sort of," she admitted.  "I just…I didn't do anything.  I just was in the background.  They filmed the maypole, and people dancing."  

                He nodded slowly.  The young woman shuddered.  "Then I saw them heading back over to the side.  Apparently they set up for their…_other _scene just over there, through the trees."

                That would be interesting, Dr. Lecter thought.  "And where was that?"  

                She pointed and shuddered again.  "I thought it was just acting," she said sadly.  "I…I didn't know.  Then I heard the screams.  And again, I thought it was just the movie."  

                "I see.  I'll have a look at the scene.  You needn't come with me if you don't want to.  Thank you, Miss Beyer.  You've been extremely helpful." 

                Dr. Lecter strolled over to where the trees separated the fairgrounds from the field next to it.  The trees were tall and towered over this small piece of ground devoted to a bygone era.   Passing through those silent sentinels revealed a horrid sight.  Yellow crime-scene tape fluttered in the wind.

                A stone fence and pasture provided the horses kept therein a small place to graze.  A gate closed it off.  A large tree provided the horses with a bit of shade.  From a large, thick branch hung four stout ropes.  From each rope, a body swung back and forth in a bizarre conga line of death.  The tips of the corpses' toes swung just above the top of the stone fence.  Flies buzzed around the faces of the dead. 

                Next to the three corpses on the rope, a fifth and sixth lay nearby.  A large wooden wheel leaned against the low fence.  What had once been a human being was attached to it.  Now, it was a thing of horror.  The limbs were broken repeatedly and carefully braided through the spokes of the wheel.  What had once been arms and legs were now shattered and bloody.  They bent in places that no limb had been meant to bend.  

                Dr. Lecter tilted his head and stared at what his child had wrought.  This wasn't right; a braided and wheeled victim should have lasted for a while, yet.  They could normally last hours.  Perhaps days.  There was something admirable in all this.  Her daughter had her problems, but there was some artistry in this.  

                From his pocket Dr. Lecter removed a pair of latex gloves.  He had obtained this to aid in the illusion of his being an FBI agent.  They were also useful in ensuring that he left no fingerprints for dear Clarice to find.  That was one convenience of now having the normal amount of fingers on his left hand; he did not need custom-made gloves anymore.  

                To lift the corpse's bloodied head took only a moment, and there he had his answer.  A deep slash across the throat had finished the job.  Doubtlessly Alice and her crew had meant only to film the victim suffering and killed them after the filming was done.  Still, it bothered him.  That was so…wasteful.

                The sixth body he found was that of a dwarf.  The corpse wore a jester's cap and bells, tights, and a T-shirt that read _Homicidal Productions.  _It lay within the pasture, bruises on its face.  The cause of death was not immediately apparent.  In its hand was a plastic bag.   Dr. Lecter was more interested in that than how the jester-dressed midget had died, so he squatted and reached for the bag.  The mud in the pasture squelched under his feet and soiled the edges of his wing tips.  He scowled.  

                The plastic bag crackled as he took it from the corpse's cold fingers.  There was something inside, rectangular and not too heavy.  Dr. Lecter glanced inside and was not surprised to see a videotape.  

                Was this the only one?  He had to find out.  Calmly he headed back to the uniformed officer guarding the scene.  The officer glanced up at him desultorily.  

                "Pardon me," Dr. Lecter said.  "There was this videotape found at the scene.  Are there any others?"  

                The officer shook his head and looked bored.  "Naw," he said.  "Our orders were to secure the scene and wait for the FBI."  He looked displeased.  

                Now it was clear.  The local police had sent this one officer to babysit the crime scene.  No wonder he was bored.  Dr. Lecter found it surprising that he had not parked closer to the scene, but not everyone was so professional as Clarice.  

                "I'll be sending some agents back shortly," Dr. Lecter said, enjoying himself rather more than he thought.  "Agents Graham and Starling.  Please extend them…every courtesy.  This videotape will go back to the lab for immediate processing."  

                The cop shrugged, not really caring.  

                Dr. Lecter's step was jaunty as he returned to the sober dark sedan he had rented.  There was something _awfully _amusing about all this.  Playing FBI agent had been fun.  For a moment he thought about what Clarice would say when the officer told her that Agent Lewis Friend had been to the scene and picked up the videotape.  He toyed with the idea of rearranging his daughter's work, but decided not to; they could have that.  

                Now all he needed was something on this tape to tell him where his excitable offspring was going.   He warmed the engine and sighed.  The vehicle he had chosen was a Buick, sedate, workaday, and would strike most people as a government car.  However, it had little performance and he did not care for it.  Whatever was under the hood, it was not the powerful V8 that he favored.  

                Still, it would do for now, and he needed to be inconspicuous.  

                He stopped at a nearby Target and purchased a VCR.  He knew exactly what he wanted and bought the best.  He paid with cash, making sure to wear his fine leather gloves so as not to leave fingerprints.  

                Back in his hotel room, it took only a moment or two to attach the VCR to the television in his room.  The tape slotted into the VCR and began to play.  At first, a blue screen appeared on the TV and then resolved into a landscape that Dr. Lecter did not think was very far away.  

                Two men pushed through a field of long, tall grass.  One was the midget Dr. Lecter had seen at the dumpsite.  The other was a tall, muscular fellow who Dr. Lecter recognized from stills culled from previous tapes in the FBI file.  Surprisingly, a musical beat began to play – some of the dreadful music from the early 1980's.  Dr. Lecter remembered the mind-numbing tune from the asylum; the orderlies had occasionally listened to the radio.  It was tinny through the hotel TV's speaker then as it had been tinny through the faraway, cheap radio then.  

                On the screen, Colin Barksdale grinned at the midget, who strummed a lyre and tried to attract his attention.  He opened his mouth and began to lip-synch with the music.  

                _We can dance if we want to,_

_                We can leave your friends behind,_

_                Cause your friends don't dance, and if they don't dance,_

_                Well, they're no friends of mine.  _

Dr. Hannibal Lecter raised an eyebrow.  The look that came over his face resembled the look a society matron might have if she discovered that her _escargot _had not been cooked or killed, and thus she was putting live snails into her mouth.  

                The two men continued along through the field to a dirt road.  The song continued as well.  Dr. Lecter shuddered delicately.  Was his daughter not the scion of Baltimore's high life?  He would _have _to have a chat with her about her taste.  

                _I say, we can go where we want to, _

_                A place where they will never find,_

_                And we can act like we come from out of this world_

_                Leave the real one far behind.  _

No murders, just the man and the dwarf in the jester outfit.  Dr. Lecter noticed that the dwarf wore the same checkerboard-patterned tights and jester's cap that he had been found dead in.  The first verse repeated, much to the doctor's disdain.  The men gained the dirt road.  

                _And we can dance, _

Alice Pierpont stood up from the bottom of the camera frame, popping into view with a wide grin.  She wore a white peasant blouse and a long red skirt.  

                "Francais!" Alice Pierpont said on the screen to her father.  

                She took the dwarf's hand in one hand and held her skirt in the other.  Dr. Lecter watched his daughter dance in a circle with a dwarf in a jester's costume with a bemused expression.  

                _It is **definitely **going to be necessary to adjust her medication, _Dr. Hannibal Lecter thought.  

                Dr. Lecter realized that there was no sound from the tape, just the song.  He turned down the volume so that the song was inaudible.  There was no need for him to torment himself with Men Without Hats.  

                Once you got rid of that, Dr. Lecter decided, the video wasn't that bad.  Alice ran ahead of Colin and walked backwards, waving her arms at him and looking rather manic.  Fortunately, once he caught up with her, he had adequate supplies of medication to bring her down to earth.  Barring that, he could simply sedate her to the point of unconsciousness and get her out of the country quietly.  

                Then the scene cut to the Renaissance fair.  Alice and Colin danced among the fairgoers and appeared to be having a good time.  He supposed they were still singing the horrible song, but his ears could not bear the thought of turning the volume up.  Dr. Lecter did not know that his daughter's version of the music video was not the same as the original, he never having been a big fan of MTV.  

                _Boring, _Dr. Lecter thought.  But the finale did not disappoint him.  

                The dwarf danced and sang.  The three walked up to the dumpsite.  Dr. Lecter recognized the stone fence and horses.  He also recognized the four corpses.  They were not corpses in the film yet.  They were alive, staring at the camera with naked terror on their faces.  Their arms were bound behind their back.  A small sort of a stand had been constructed under their feet.  To Dr. Lecter it looked like a simple board.  They had stacked bricks under it so that it would provide support.  It looked rather wobbly.  

                Another man dressed in garb cowered by the wall, also bound.  Dr. Lecter identified this person as the unfortunate wheeled and braided victim he had seen before.  He knew what would happen here.   His ears picked up minute variations in the sound, and he realized that the audio was now playing.   He turned it back up and winced.  

                The awful music was still playing, but it was now their voices in lieu of the original singers.  Dr. Lecter wondered briefly how they had done that and decided it was probably through some sort of computer program.  

                "We can dance if we want to, we've got all your life and mine," Alice sang on the screen.  Dr. Lecter was somewhat surprised; her voice was pleasant to listen to.  Perhaps he could wean her from this popular garbage and interest her in opera.  

 Then she strode up to the four hanging victims, and pulled the board away with a savage jerk.  Her happily manic smile continued unabated.  The four victims fell perhaps six inches.  An audible crack echoed over the speaker.  From the looks of things, Dr. Lecter thought two victims died instantly from broken necks.  The unluckier ones strangled at the end of their ropes.  As the video went on, their faces turned purple and their features tortured.  

Below them, Alice and Colin danced merrily around their victim.  The dwarf continued to dance too.  Dr. Lecter stopped and eyed him.  The dwarf was glancing at the hanging victims.  Dr. Lecter closed his eyes for a moment and thought.  

_He's not in on it, _Dr. Lecter deduced.  _He thinks it's a movie, and thus it's just a special effect.  But he's beginning to wonder.  _

The two murderers sang about the safety dance.  From the ground Alice picked up a heavy iron bar; Colin armed himself with a hammer.  They set upon their victim with gleeful abandon.  Fleshy, wet _whacks _and _thuds _emitted from the fray.  The crack of bone could be audibly distinguished from the tearing of flesh and muscle.  Agonized cries counterpointed the song from the killers' lips.  Dr. Lecter found himself surprised that they were able to continue singing.  

_It's the safety dance, _

_Yeah, the safety dance, _

_The saaafety dance!  _

When they had finished pulverizing their victim, the two killers stood proudly.  The fellow they had recognized barely looked human.  They hauled him up by an arm each, standing over him as if proud of their accomplishment.  His arms flexed in the way no human arms should.  The effect reminded Dr. Lecter of a thick rope.  

Shrieks of agony emitted from the victim's mouth, still recognizably human.  The arms and legs were shattered beyond any hope of repair.  The victim's eyes had been blackened and his nose broken by blows that had landed on his face in lieu of his limbs.  But his mouth was still in reasonably good shape, Dr. Lecter thought.  

Alice and Colin picked him up and carefully laced the broken limbs through the spokes of a nearby wooden wheel.  They had done their job well, and the compound fractures provided the requisite flexibility well.  The wounds were open, and there were pieces of bone splinter mixed into the gory wounds.  The mouth still emitted horrid shrieks.

The dwarf apparently decided that enough was enough and turned to run.  Alice and Colin both turned to look at him as he began to run.  For a moment Dr. Lecter was tense, wondering if the dwarf would escape, even though he had already known the answer.  

They caught up with him easily; his legs were far shorter than theirs and he was not able to cover as much ground.  Colin held him firmly under the arms.  Alice raised the bar high.  She glanced over at the camera.   

"It's the _safety dance!"  _she cried, and smacked him once with the bar.  Then she put the bar down.  Colin tossed the dwarf's corpse unceremoniously away to where it had fallen.  Alice faced the camera and raised her skirt in a polite curtsey.  

"This has been a Homicidal Production," she said calmly.  "Look for our next one soon, Reesey and Josh.  We'll be doing a little…jailhouse rock."  

Then the scene faded to white words on a black screen that Dr. Lecter remembered from the file.  _This has been a Homicidal Production.  Copyright 2004._

It was…interesting, that was for sure.  He was glad that he had gotten to it before Clarice and Joshua.  Now his task lay before him: to find the patterns of order amidst the chaos.  It would be difficult, but there had to be something.  Some way for him to track Alice.  After all, if he did not, then Clarice would get to her first.

 …

                _Two days later _

_                Starkey County, Indiana _

The Escort was covered with road dust and grime as the miles had gone by.  Alice was quite pleased.  The music video had been _fun.  _She and Colin had worked together nicely.  Chatiqua had done her magic on her end of the camera, and they'd left their usual calling card.  

                Reesey and Joshie wouldn't appreciate it, though.  That was too bad.  Why didn't they realize what _fun _they were having?  If they only asked, Alice thought they could find a role for Clarice and Josh in the movies.  It would be amazingly great fun.  

                Thinking of Josh made her a bit sad, though.  She still had feelings for him.  In her heart of hearts she knew it would never work; Josh loved the FBI, not her.  He never would.  There was nothing that could make him feel for her the way she felt for him. 

                All the same, she had found herself liking Colin Barksdale a lot more these days.  He understood her.  They shared the same pressures: staying one step ahead of the authorities, Chatiqua's bossiness on the set, properly hitting their marks and playing their roles.  

                Teek was jealous of that.  Alice could tell.  Why?  She and Teek were still buddies; they always would be.  Alice knew that she owed her current freedom to her friend.  She wasn't going to just _dump _Chatiqua.  No way.  

                Alice closed her eyes and thought about a movie or a music video that might have a role for Josh and Reesey in it.  After a moment, she had it.  Maybe she'd have to talk to Teek about letting her have a role behind the camera too.  Acting was fun and all, but she was curious.  

                But for now this was still Teek's show.  And Teek was bossy as ever.  After filming the video, they had traveled for a couple of days.  During that time, she'd made Alice take some Depakote she'd picked up from somewhere.  Alice wasn't sure where she'd gotten it from.  She didn't like Depakote, especially when she was in one of her up phases.  She felt _great, _like there was nothing wrong.  So what if she was a little bouncy?  

                But Teek had been insistent, reminding Alice that she didn't want her stripping in the back seat or anything.  So Alice had complied with her friend's wishes and taken the nasty stuff.  Now she sat in the back seat, calm and cool.  Teek had told her she had to be calm and cool to pull this off.  For the past few days, Alice's mania had been under control.  

                In a way, Alice thought, she was more dangerous this way.  When she was all the way up, she was too bouncy to kill people.  Maybe that was what Teek was counting on.   She hoped Teek had enough Depakote to keep her out of her down phases.  Being stuck in a down phase without even the release of an up phase would be an _awful _punishment.  

                But for now it was time to be serious.  Calm, cool, collected.  Here, in this place.  Teek had found it.  Starkey County, Indiana, a sparsely populated rural dot on the map in the northwestern corner of the state.  There were two towns and a little village.  Starkey County had also recently received some sort of Federal funding recently, and they had gone and built themselves a brand-spanking-new jail.  

                The county had made some money with its new jail, which had a lot more capacity than the few criminals this tiny little corner of Indiana had.  They did so by boarding prisoners from other counties.  Articles in the media had gloried over it: everything was controlled by remote control, and so the jail required fewer officers to actually staff and run it.  

                That made it _perfect _for their purposes.  

                The Escort pulled into the parking lot at the county jail and slipped into a space.  Alice opened the door and stretched.  She needed to be calm and cool.  _You can do this, _Chatiqua had told her.  _You're an actress.  Colin's an actor.  All you need to do is just that:  act.  _ 

                Besides, Colin would be doing most of the talking, anyway.  

                She wore a neat suit and pumps and looked quite professional.  Colin stepped from the passenger seat of the car and stretched his blocky frame himself.  He, too, wore a suit and tie.  He looked pretty good, Alice thought.  The way they needed to look:  like mid-level bureaucrats. 

                The doors to the jail loomed overhead.  This wasn't where prisoners entered; they came in through a secure gate in the back.  Obtaining blueprints to the jail hadn't been too hard.  Teek had done that through the Internet a while ago, while they were still en route.  Downloading them had taken _forever _on a slow dialup line.  

                Alice and Colin strolled into the jail and walked up to the officer on duty at the desk.  There were a few other officers standing around.  They wore rumpled uniforms and looked bored.  He glanced up at them. 

                "Can I help you?" he asked. 

                Alice reached into her purse; Colin reached into her pocket.  Both of them removed black wallets and displayed ID cards.  They'd made these up the night before.  Alice thought they looked pretty good.  

                "Hi," Colin said.  "My name is Jason Brindley.  This is Mary Eddison.  We're with the Indiana State Bureau of Jails and Prisons.  We're here to inspect the prison on a pop inspection.  Can I speak to the officer in charge, please?"  

                The guy behind the desk blinked slowly.  He adjusted his polyester uniform shirt and stared at the two of them.  "What?" he asked.  

                "We're with the Indiana State Bureau of Jails and Prisons," Colin repeated.  "This is a pop inspection.  I need to speak with your ranking officer, please."  He smiled calmly.  

                "For what?"  the guy asked.  Alice sighed.  Apparently this guy wasn't quick on the uptake.  

                "This is a pop inspection," she chimed in.  "All jails in Indiana have to meet certain standards.  Your jail has been selected for a surprise inspection."  

                The guy shook his head.  "No one said anything about an inspection," he protested.  

                "That's right," Colin said calmly.  "It's a surprise inspection.  We don't always tell you we're coming.  Now: call your ranking officer, please."  

                The officer decided this was more than he needed to deal with and placed a phone call.  Alice watched calmly.  There was no reason for the other guys just standing around to be here.  That meant they were lazy, and that would be a good thing.  Of course, once word of the pop inspection spread throughout the jail, they'd get busy quickly.  

                Within a few minutes, a man with captain's bars pinned to his uniform epaulets came down.  He was older, about Colin's size himself, and out of breath.  He stared angrily at them above a bushy moustache.  

                "What the hell is this about?" he panted.  

                "This is a pop inspection, sir," Colin said calmly.  "We're with the State Bureau of Jails and Prisons, and we--," 

                "I know that," the man snapped.  "What do you mean?  Why are you here?"  

                "To inspect the facility, Captain…Handley," Colin said, leaning to get the name off the nametag.  "Look.  This is no big deal, really.  Just let us have a look in the prison, and we'll fill out our report and leave you alone.  We're not here  to gather inmate complaints; that's what the courts are for.  We just have to make sure that everything's up to date and that the water is running and all that."  

                "The jail is barely a year old," the captain said, perplexed.  

                Colin reached over and took the man's arm gently.  He began to walk away and indicated for the man to follow him.  Alice fell into step beside them, knowing that the officers behind her were checking out her legs.  Big deal; she'd get them back for it later.  

                "Captain Handley," Colin said comfortingly.  His voice was lulling and soft.  "I have my orders just like you do.  My orders are to review the jail and make sure it meets state standards.  I'm sure it does.  But this _is _state law, and I have to do my job.  Now if you refuse to cooperate, then I'll go back to Indianapolis and tell them you refused to cooperate.  If that happens, then a lot of things are going to happen.  For one thing, your state certification to run the jail will be revoked.  A bunch of buses will come out and pick up the prisoners and take them to facilities elsewhere in the state.  Your people will all be sent home.  Now it'll all get straightened out in a couple of months, I'm sure, but why make unnecessary hassle for yourself?"  

                The captain stared at him wordlessly.  

                "What I need to do is this: look in a couple of cells and make sure they're the right size.  I need to take a couple of water samples and make sure the inmates have potable water from the sink.  And I need to have a look in the jail's control room and make sure that's up to scratch.  I need to see a copy of your manuals and procedures.  No inmate complaints, none of that.  Just some paperwork.  It shouldn't take more than a few hours and won't interfere with the operation of the jail in any way shape or form.  OK?"  

                Alice smiled tightly at him when he glanced over at her.  Colin was good that way; he could be very persuasive when he wanted to be.  The captain shrugged and swallowed.  

                "Fine, then," he said.  He gestured with a thumb.  "Officer Parker, how bout you show these people around?  Show them every courtesy."  

                A lanky officer broke from the huddle standing around by the desk and smiled nervously.  His face was pale under his uniform cap.  A long stray lock of hair pushed free from under the visor.  

                "Okay," he said with a Midwestern accent that reminded Alice of Reesey.   Reesey, who she still considered a friend, even though it was Reesey's sworn duty to put her back in the loony bin.  "Y'all come with me now.  I'll show you whatever you need to see."  

                Alice and Colin played their roles.  They looked over an empty cell and measured it, writing down the measurements in a notebook.  Colin took a sample of tap water from the sink and put it in a test tube, which he capped tightly and put in his pocket.  

                The officer was extremely helpful and promised that a copy of the jail's manuals for inmates and employees would be made available to them on the way out.  He answered their questions to the best of his ability.  Alice fell into her role, enjoying the chance to be a bureaucrat.  It was pleasant and easy enough.  

                The officers they passed kept an eye on her skirt hem as they passed, and she quietly marked several of them for when the fun started.  

                Eventually, they were brought down a hallway past several locking gates.  At the end of the hall was a thick steel door.  Their escort's keys jangled on his keyring as he got the right one out.  He smiled apologetically.  

                "Sorry bout all this," he said.  "We keep this room _reeeal _secure, though.  We have to.  You can run the whole facility from that room alone.   We need to keep the inmates _out _of here."  

                _Well, thank you for letting **us** in, Mr. Guard, _Alice thought.  

                The room itself was somewhat bunkerlike.  It was reasonably large, but the concrete walls and large desk provided a determined air.  This was a place that had its mind on its work.  A bank of TV's on one wall provided the guards running the place with a black and white, fisheye view of what was happening all over the facility.  

                In front of the bank of monitor screens was a desk with many control buttons and switches.  Alice found herself thinking of the movie _Star Wars, _with the Imperial troopers on the Death Star.   Two guards sat at it, glancing over at the screens.  A telephone nearby allowed them to contact elsewhere in the prison.  Alice looked over at the guards. Something seemed odd. 

                "Hmm," she said thoughtfully.  "Guards on duty here don't carry walkie-talkies?"  

                "No, ma'am," one of the guards at the desk answered.  "The walls are too thick here.  Signal doesn't reach."  

                That was convenient.  

                "So can you control everything in this room?" she asked politely.  

                The guard blinked and nodded politely.  "Yes, ma'am," he said.  "From this room, we can lock down all four housing blocks."  

                Alice nodded.  Good.  "How about access to the outside?" she pressed.  

                The guard preened.  "Everything right here," he said lightly.  

                "Even administrative offices and that sort of thing?" Alice asked.  

                "Everything," the guard assured her.  

                Colin leaned forward and smiled kindly.  "So in a riot situation, one guard here could secure the entire facility."  

                The guard pondered and rubbed his chin.  "Well," he allowed, "we can lock down the entire facility.  Keep everything calm and keep a riot from spreading.  We can't, like, arrest people from here, obviously."  

                Alice smiled coolly.  "How about fire prevention systems?"  

                "Those are automatic, ma'am," the guard said helpfully.  "But we can shut it down and bring it back up from here, yes."  He gestured at a series of gleaming metal switches.  

                _All righty then, _Alice Pierpont thought.  It was hard to believe this was so easy.  This guy was _telling _her everything she needed to know.  Then again, he thought she was a state agent.  Plus, this was a welcome break from the monotony.

                There was just one more thing that she needed.  

                "If a riot _did _break out, can you describe your riot-control procedures to me?" she asked politely.  Her left hand held the notebook, her right hand poised over it with a silver pen ready to take down his words.  He stared at her left hand and blanched.  Let him stare.  In another minute he'd have a lot to stare about.  

                "Well…um…the usual, you know," he began uncertainly.  "Lock down the pod that's rioting.  Try and keep everything else normal.  Talk to the guards over the phone, keep them apprised of what we got through the cameras."  He gestured at the big set of black-and-white monitors.  

                Alice nodded and wrote that down.

                Part of her could barely believe this.  It was almost too easy.  She checked the monitors.  All the guards were in little groups.  Once they had control of the place, most of the guards could remain locked up; they would only have to clear a path through one housing pod.  That would be easy.  From here, they could do everything.  

                "Is there one button here that locks down everything?" she asked.  "Like a panic-button sort of thing?"  

                The guard nodded and stared at her coolly.  "Yes, ma'am," he said, and indicated a large red plastic button.  It was covered over by a clear plastic shield to prevent it being pressed accidentally, but was not locked.   "Course, if you ever hit that, you'd better have a good reason why.  Once you press that, every door in this building closes and locks and can't be unlocked except for here.  Somebody hit it by accident once.  Sheriff was _pissed.  _Er, excuse me, ma'am, he was mad._"  _

Alice nodded.  "That's all right," she said in a businesslike tone.  "Colin?  _Now."  _

Alice lunged forward and dropped the notebook.  She raised the silver pen high and rushed the guard.  Behind her, Colin was taking care of their escort.  Her right hand came up and the pen flicked in her hand.   Her hand came down, the silver Cross pen held not like a pen but a dagger.  It punched into the guard's jugular with a wet sound.  A spray of dark red blood splattered on the bank of TV monitors in a bloodstain that looked like a pagan religious symbol.  

                A _crack _behind her indicated that Colin had taken care of their escort.  She didn't know what he had done.  It didn't matter.  Alice pulled the pen free and lunged for the second guard at the desk.  He was beginning to rise and paw for the can of pepper spray on his belt.  

                But Alice was faster and far more vicious.  She grabbed for his shirt with her left hand and brought her right down again.  She aimed for his eye and hit it.  A liquid _pop _and a scream announced her success.  Alice let the pen go and struck it again with the heel of her hand, driving it further into his brain.  The second guard rolled back dead.  

                Colin flipped back the cover and pressed the red button.  Red lights began to flash.  Grumbling sounds from deep in the prison announced that every door was closing and locking.  Alice chuckled and reached for the phone.  It had been only a few minutes, and all three guards were dead.  

                It took only a moment to dial the number for Teek's cell phone.  It rang three times and was answered promptly before it could ring a fourth time.  

                "Hi, Teek," Alice said.  "We got the place."  Her maroon eyes swept the monitors.  "About twenty guards on duty.  Only two or three we need to get out of the way, though, the others can stay locked up in the other pods."  

                "Good work, girl," Teek's voice said crisply.  "You ready?"  

                Alice nodded.   She felt good.  They were in control of the situation.  The jail was theirs.  And this would be a lot of fun.   "We need some dancers, and some band people," she said calmly.  "Then…let's get _hot."   _

                __


	12. Laying Framework

                                _Author's note: _

_                Yes, it's been a while – it's been an odd few weeks lately.  But here we are, another chapter, with (ahem) two Special Guest Stars in the Alice part of things…_

Clarice Starling stood in the middle of the field and stared. The carnage that Alice and company had inflicted on this little Renaissance festival hung in mute display.  The corpses swung in the air.  Flies buzzed around their faces, lending medieval authenticity to their deaths.  

                Even so, those weren't the worst.  That was easily the horror on the wheel.  That made even Clarice, who had worked as a lab wretch under Jimmy Price, shudder.  It solidified her determination to see Alice Pierpont back behind bars.  Alice and all her little friends.  No more of this insane-asylum bullshit; Alice was going to prison, where she should have been from the word go.  

                Josh was over examining the body of the dwarf with one of the forensics people.  The brief, bright light of a camera lit the dwarf's battered features.  Clarice wondered if they had a name for him yet.  They hadn't found any ID on him. 

                More troublingly, there was no tape, either.  That made no sense at all.  They were trying to find out some way to figure out where the Homicidal Productions crew was going.  It was tough going.  They knew that they were headed west, from the general westerly trend of the killings.  But their prey was canny enough to range north and south as they went.  The computers were unable to correlate much.  Alice and her crew favored the Interstates. Clarice was pretty sure of that.  But they would move north and south by a couple hundred miles.  

                They also knew how to stay down reasonably well.  Clarice's original hope that Alice might be cycling up and thus noticeable appeared to be fraying.  No reports anywhere of someone meeting her opinion acting strangely.  That meant that Chatiqua Miller had to have some kind of control of her.  Maybe she had Alice on her meds.  

                Staring at the victims, Clarice found herself wondering if perhaps she had been bested.  Disappointment weighed her stomach down with lead.  Maybe chaos would win this one.  Maybe she couldn't discern enough of a pattern to figure out where they would strike next.  She couldn't put the entire US west of Ohio under martial law.  

                _No, _she told herself.  _It's just like Buffalo Bill.  There was a time when we thought we'd never catch him.  But we did.  Luck will turn our way.  Soon.  _

Josh finished up whatever he was doing with the dead dwarf and trotted over to her.  

                "Hey," he said morosely.  "God, look at this."  

                Clarice nodded.  "It's pretty bad," she said, staring at the braided horror on the wheel.  "We'll get them, though.  Somewhere along the line, they always make a mistake."  _I sure hope so, _she added mentally.  

                "Where's the tape?" Josh asked.  "They _have _to leave a tape.  It's their signature."  He looked around and shook his head.  "Making the tape is practically their whole reason for doing this," he continued.  "There's a tape somewhere."  

                "Let me see if one of the local boys has it," Clarice said, and ventured over to a knot of uniformed men glowering at the FBI teams that had come in and taken over their case.  They eyed her calmly with no camaraderie.  For a moment she found herself thinking of Potter and that poor sad girl…what had her name been?  Kimberly Emberg, or something like that.   

                "Help you, ma'am?" one of the cops said.  

                Clarice smiled, a quick professional tense and release of her cheek muscles.  "I'm Agent Clarice Starling with the FBI.  The perps who committed this crime always tape the crimes.  It's an active FBI case, that's why we're here.  Was there a videocassette left here, maybe?  Did any of your evidence techs find a tape here?  It would've been left right out in the open."  

                The cop shook his head.  "Naw," he said.  "No tape."  

                From the back, another cop spoke up from where he lounged against his cruiser.  "Yeah there was, but your friends in the FBI have it," he said.  

                Clarice's ears perked and her head tilted in a fashion that unconsciously imitated Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  She took a step forward.  "My friends in the FBI?" she asked.  

                An older, tired-looking cop stepped forward out of the glob of uniforms.  "Yeah," he said.  

                Clarice pointed at Josh.  "_He _has it?"  

                "Not him," the cop said.  "The older guy.  The one who was here before."  

                A thrum of excitement and nerves ran through Clarice's gut like a dog chasing a rabbit.  "The older guy?  Was there another FBI agent here before?"  

                "Yeah," the uniform yawned.  "Didn't you know he was out here?"  

                Clarice shook her head.  

                "Older guy.  Dark hair.  Had a suit like his."  He nodded at Josh.   "He was here a couple hours before you guys came out and got the tape.  Figured it was on its way back to Washington by now, myself.   Oh, Christ, what did he say his name was?"  His eyes rolled up as he tried to remember.  

                Josh gave Clarice a curious look.  "There hasn't been anyone from the FBI out here except us," he murmured.  "Do you think that means…" he trailed off.  

                "Friend," the cop said suddenly.  "He said his name was Louis Friend."  

                Josh leaned forward, and a predatorial look she had never seen before crossed his face.  "Agent Louis Friend," he mused.  "Well, well, well."  

                "Is there a problem?" the cop asked.  

                Josh shook his head wordlessly and eyed Clarice calmly.  She smiled again at the cop, quick jerk and relax of her face, and walked a bit so that they wouldn't hear them.  

                "So," Josh said calmly.  "Dr. Lecter got the tape."  

                Clarice nodded.  Why was it that Josh seemed happy about that?  It wasn't good.  

                "Yeah," she said.  "And the best hope we have of tracking them is through the tape.  This sucks."  

                Josh shook his head and looked at her with a cold, calculating look on his face.  For a moment he looked weirdly familiar.  Then it hit her – that was how _Crawford _looked sometimes.  Usually when he saw a chance to capture his prey.  On Josh's face it seemed alien and spooky.  

                "The tape isn't the best way we have of tracking them," he said coolly.  "They _give _us the tape.  They know for a fact that we're going to analyze the shit out of it.  If they do leave any kind of clue on it, it'll be accidental.  So far none of the tapes have had _any _value in telling us where they're going to strike next.  All we get are the vaguest hints of _what _they are going to do, and it's so vague that it's effectively worthless."  

                Clarice nodded.  "Even so, if Dr. Lecter has the tape, then he's got anything we could have used."  

                Josh nodded and that cool smile crossed his face again.  "If Dr. Lecter has the tape, then he's after his daughter," he added mildly.  "And we know how to track him. _You _know how to track him.  If we're lucky, we may be able to catch them _both."  _

                …

                The jail did not realize at first that it was under new management.  All the denizens of the jail, prisoners and guards alike, knew at first was that red lights were flashing and doors had closed and locked.  Prisoners out on the rec yards were unable to get into the jail proper, back to their cells.  Guards were unable to contact each other through the telephone system.  This was because the telephone system had been shut down from the main control room.  The main control room was now under the control of Alice and Colin.  

                But the souls locked within the jail did not know who their new rulers were or what they wanted.  The prisoners were both pleased and annoyed.  They were pleased by any break in the monotonous routine that ruled them normally.  They were annoyed because wherever they were; they were locked down there and could not move about the jail with even the limited freedom they were normally allowed.  

                Alice Pierpont took some time to examine the monitors.  It did not take long for her to realize that Cellblock B would be ideal for their purposes.  She reviewed the people she would need to take out.  A few guards.  Fortunately, they were split up and armed only with cans of pepper spray.  That could be dealt with.  

                So she headed out of the control room.  Colin manned the control desk.  He could see her from the monitors.  As she strode down the hall, the doors opened as if by phantom hands and then slammed closed again.  

                She knew the layout of the place pretty well; she'd always been good at remembering things.  She knew where she was going, too.  According to Teek, they needed some guards to serve as disposable actors.  They'd also need some extras, people who would be allowed the rare experience of surviving the production.  There would be witnesses, but what the hey.  They could live a little; it wasn't like they were _that _easy to find.  

                To walk through the halls of a prison containing hostile guards and possibly hostile prisoners would require a weapon.  Fortunately, there were no guards between where she was and where she needed to go for now.  Just in case, Alice had availed herself of the use of a fire axe kept in the control room.  The sight of a woman in a suit strolling through the jail, axe in hand, served to cow those inmates and guards who shouted to her from behind the barred gates.  

                If that didn't work, she just ignored them.  If _that _didn't work, she simply grinned at them and waved the axe around menacingly.  Even though there was at least one gate between her and them, they usually shrank away.  This was a lot of fun, when you came down to it. 

                Alice walked down the hall, her heels clicking on the concrete floor.  Overhead was a sign marked _Women's Wing.  _She found herself reminded of the asylum and stopped for a moment, unusually thoughtful.  Then Colin must've seen her standing in front of the gate, as it opened with a loud crash.   Alice stepped calmly onto another wing where women were held against their will.  

                There were a few guards here, but only one in the same pod with her.  The others were safely behind gates where she would worry about them later.  There were a _lot _of gates in here, now that she saw it.  That one little button, and nobody could go anywhere. 

                The guard stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment.  He was tall, muscular, and looked extremely puzzled.  Alice wondered if he usually worked on the women's cellblock.  If so, was he the heartthrob of the block?  From what she'd seen, the choices were pretty limited.    

                "What the hell is going on?" he asked.  

                Alice answered him without a word; she swung the axe full-force into his skull.  Even in a fancy suit that restricted her motion, it smacked him above the eye and silenced his questions.  A loud _thunk _echoed through the halls of the cellblock.  

                Now she had access to four cells.  A few more extended down the hall, but the security gates locked them off.   Boy, it would suck to be have a cell all the way at the other end, Alice thought.  You'd have to open four gates before you could go anywhere.  

                In the first cell, on the left, there was a young girl with blonde hair and glasses.  She stared uncertainly at Alice.  Alice grinned merrily at her.  

                "Hi!" Alice said cheerfully.  

                "Um…hi," replied the girl.  

                "I'm Alice," Alice said perkily.  "What's your name?"  

                "Michelle," the girl said cautiously.  "Did you…did you just kill Officer Dodson?"  

                Alice adopted an expression of mock innocence.  "Oh, _noooo," _she caroled.  "I would never do that.  I was just playing with him.  Now I just want to ask you a few questions."  

                The girl swallowed, thought, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor, especially when one was in a prison cell and a woman with an axe stood outside the door.  

                "Okay," she said.  

                "What are you in for?" Alice asked chattily.  "You look a little young to be in the county jail."  

                The girl sighed.  "I had an argument with my mom," she said hedgingly.   "And…well…one thing led to another."  

                Alice's eyebrows rose.  "You poor thing.  Really?  I had an argument with _my _mom when I was about your age, about my perverted little brother.  She slapped me in juvie for six months or so.  But that's okay.  Now he's serving thirty years in prison, and I'm out and about and having _fuuuun, _and all's well that ends well, right?"

                "I guess so," the girl agreed. 

"Listen, if your mom is anything like mine, let me give you some advice," Alice said, and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.  "Kill her now, while you're a young juvenile, and you can get off with time in juvie."  

Michelle eyed her suspiciously from behind her glasses.  "I'll keep that in mind," she said. "Hey…what are you planning to do with that axe?"  

                Alice grinned and tossed the axe away.  It landed with a metallic _thud _against the hard floor.  "Nothing at all, Michelle dear Michelle," she said.  "I promise you that if you do what I want, you will live your life until you're an old woman with gray hair and a cane, unless you anger someone _else _carrying an axe.  Then I cannot be held responsible."

                The young girl stared at her and raised an eyebrow.  

                "Hey," a voice came from the cell across the way.  "What's going on here?  Are you threatening my friend?"  

                Alice turned to see another girl in the cell across the way.  This one's hair was cut close to her head, not shoulder-length like the first's.   She eyed Alice suspiciously.  

                "Threatening her?" Alice trilled sweetly.  "I _never.  _And might I point out that you're in a cell there yourself, so it's not like there's much you can do about it even if I _was.  _I've been in custody myself there, keed, and if you were planning on throwing water or something worse on me, then I shall become angry.  And if I become angry, then I sometimes do things I later regret.  Like going into your partner in crime's cell and not only _threatening _her with the axe but chopping her into messy little _pieces_ with the axe, and then you'd be mad at me and I'd feel _ever _so guilty, so let's try to avoid that, hmmmm?"  

                The girl blinked.  

                "You're crazier than I am," she said slowly.

                "Probably," Alice agreed chirpily.  "What's your name?"   

                "Natalie," the girl answered suspiciously.  

                "Natalie.  Natalie and Michelle.  Partners in crime.  What are you in for, Natalie?" Alice queried. 

                "I…er…I threw a chair at my principal," Natalie answered.  

                "A _chair?"  _Alice seemed shocked.  "That won't kill _anyone.  _You need to get yourself some bigger ordnance next time. Try a fire extinguisher, they're big and heavy and you can find them in school.  Anyways.  I'll tell you what.  I need you two for something, then I'll let you go free in exchange.  Would you like that?"  

                The girls eyed each other from behind the bars of their respective cells.  

                "Free!"  Alice stuck her thumbs under her armpits and flapped her arms.  "Like a bird out of a cage.  Free to go.  Free to wander the earth and possibly kill people with axes and fire extinguishers, _not _chairs."  This last was said with a pointed glare towards Natalie.  

                "Okay," Michelle said, but still eyed Alice mistrustfully.  

                "Great!" Alice said smartly.  "I just have a few things to do.  Including get you two dresses.  The storeroom has jail dresses, doesn't it?"  

                Both girls scowled.  "We don't _wear _dresses," Michelle said.  

                "You will now," Alice said.  

                The blonde girl shook her head violently.  "No.  No way.  You can't _make _us.  We have constitutional rights."  

                Alice sighed.  "Oh, _I_ can make you," she said, an unpleasant tone in her voice.  

                "No, you can't," Michelle avowed vehemently.  

                "Care to bet?" Alice asked.  "Besides, it's for a movie."  Her tone made it obvious that she felt that fact should overcome their objections.  

                "Then we don't want to be in a movie," Michelle averred, her chin stuck out defiantly.  

                "I'm mentally ill and violent," Alice explained.  "Humor me.  It's the best course of action.  Really."

                Neither girl spoke, but their refusal was apparent.  Oh well.  They would learn.  Otherwise Alice would simply have to chop their legs off; odds were that would make the others more tractable to her wants and desires.  She'd seen the costume Teek had picked out for her, and that would make these two freak.  Besides, this was about _art.  _

"Well, we'll discuss it when I get back," Alice said tactfully. She turned and headed back down the hall the way she had come.  She had guards to kill and a set to get ready.  Where _was _Teek, anyway?  The heels of her shoes rapped firmly against the floor, receding as she left.  Then, her voice came floating back through the cellblock.  

                "Yes-ah…ha-ha!" _Clack-clack-clack _went her heels in a quick staccato dance, and then a door slammed behind her, leaving the prisoners to wonder when she would be back and what she would want.  

                They stared at each other through the bars for a moment.  

                "She can't _make us wear dresses," Natalie said.  "It isn't right."  _

                Michelle seemed doubtful. "I don't think _she's _right either.  She killed Officer Dodson with an axe."

                Silence rained down on the cellblock like an avalanche wrapped in foam. 

                In a few hours, they heard two sets of shoes approaching.  The crazy white lady who had killed the officer was now followed by a crazy black lady and a crazy big guy.  The crazy black lady had a double-barreled shotgun under her arm.   The big guy had another.  The doors of the girls' cells rumbled open. 

                "C'mon, girls," Alice Pierpont said merrily. "We're _ready!"  _


	13. Hot Hot Hot

                _Author's note: _

_                Yes, this story has arisen from the grave.  A bit of gore for the gore fans…_

                Clarice Starling sat in a small office and glanced around.  They'd gotten a call to come up here shortly after the scene at the Renaissance fair.  Starkey County, Indiana.  It was a small county, two towns and a little hamlet.  It reminded her of the small town she'd grown up in.  They were the same all over America.  

                The local authorities were quite distressed over what had happened.  Clarice and Josh had been sent up here hurriedly, and the locals were glad to see them.  In some ways it was silly; it was all over.  The Homicidal Productions crew had already left town.  Just as before, Clarice and Josh got to try and clean up the mess, look for some pattern that might point them in the right direction, and hope like hell that Dr. Lecter didn't find Alice first. 

                It was frustrating.  There was a pattern, sure.  They made movies and killed people in them and made snotty comments to Clarice and Josh on them.  But there wasn't a _usable _pattern.  It was a big, big country, and somewhere in it were three serial killers, banging around, having fun, and looking for victims.  And Clarice knew no more about how to stop them, or catch them, than she had the day Chatiqua Miller shot her and plucked Alice Pierpont from her safe confinement and set her loose.  

                Her reverie was interrupted by Josh Graham entering the room.  He had a TV and VCR on a cart.  Behind him, he had a small blonde girl in tow.  She was dressed in county jail blues and seemed frightened, as if she had undergone a shock.   Clarice frowned and wondered what he was doing.   She looked rather young for Josh to Clarice's eyes.  

                "Hey," Josh said.  "Had to round up a VCR."  He squatted to plug in his equipment and the screen jumped to glow bright blue.  Then he indicated the young woman behind him.  

                "This is Michelle," he explained, and his face quirked.  "She…she's a witness.  She was held on the unit that…the HP crew took over."  

                Clarice blinked.  HP?  What did printers have to do with this? Then she realized he meant the Homicidal Productions crew.  Probably didn't want to scar the kid any more than necessary.  Clarice eyed the blonde girl cautiously.  

                "Hi, Michelle," she said.  "What were you in for, if you don't mind me asking?"  

                The girl looked at her from behind her glasses and sniffled.  "I…I had an argument with my mom.  It just got out of hand.  They were gonna release me to my mom later that day.  But then…_" _she shuddered.  "Then _they _came and took over the cellblock."  

                Clarice nodded.  The girl shivered.  Josh looked over at her and a sympathetic look crossed his face.  "The AC is brutal in here," he said.  "You want some coffee, Michelle?  How about you, Clarice?"  

                The girl nodded.  

                "Cream or sugar?"  

                "No cream," she said.  "Five sugars."  

                Josh's eyebrow rose.  "That's a lot," he said in a tone that indicated he would prefer that her pancreas not explode on his watch.

                "I like it with sugar," she said plaintively.  "Can't I have it?"  She shuddered and looked at the TV set again.  

                "All right," Josh said.  He returned a few minutes later with three Styrofoam cups in hand.  He handed one to the blonde girl, one to Clarice, and kept the third for himself.  Clarice watched him idly.  Black, no sugar; he knew how she took her coffee.  The young woman grabbed the coffee cup and drank from it with gusto, as if it contained the nectar of the gods.  

                Well, coffee was pretty close to that, when you came down to it.  

                "So, Michelle," Josh said.  "What can you tell us about what happened?"  

                The girl sighed.  Her throat wobbled.  "Well, I was just in the cellblock, waiting for them to come get me," she started.  "I was talking with the girl in the next cell.  Her name is Natalie.  Then…then this woman came in.  She was wearing a suit and had an axe.  She killed Officer Dodson."  

                Clarice nodded.  "What did she look like?"  

                Michelle swigged again from the coffee.  Clarice found herself thinking the kid must be quite the caffeine addict; swigging like that would've burned her throat something awful.  She put it down and stared at Clarice for a moment or two before looking over at Josh.  

                "She was white," she began.  Clarice nodded.  Alice.  "She had black hair, like _really _black.  And red eyes.  And she had six fingers on her left hand.  And she…wasn't right.  She was all bouncy, but she killed Officer Dodson and then started chatting with Natalie and me like nothing was wrong."  

                Definitely Alice.  "Then what did she do?"  

                "She said she was going to make us wear dresses," Michelle said, and sniffled.   Her eyes rimmed with trauma.  She shuddered, as if wearing a dress was a worse fate than being in jail.

                Clarice shrugged.  It wasn't a big deal.  "So…so what happened then?"

                "This black woman and this big tall guy came in with her then," Michelle continued.  "Nat and me, we said we'd do what they said but didn't want to wear dresses.  The black girl was sort of bossy and was going to make us, but the white girl said as long as we did what we were told it would be OK.  So they dressed us up in jail blues and took two other girls out of the cellblock and brought us down to the exercise yard."  

                Clarice nodded sympathetically.  "All right," she said.  "Look, we have to watch this tape.  You don't have to watch it if you don't want to."  

                The girl gave Josh a look that seemed mushier than Clarice expected it to be.  Josh simply sat there and didn't seem to register it.  A little grin threatened to manifest on Clarice's lips.  _Oh, Josh, I think someone likes you. _

"It's okay," the girl said, still looking at Josh.  She smiled at him and sipped at her coffee.  "I can watch it.  It won't be any worse than _being _in it."  

                Josh wielded the remote and pointed it at the VCR.  "Okay," he said uncertainly.  He pressed PLAY and the latest work of the Homicidal Productions crew began to play across the screen.  The words HOT HOT HOT appeared on the screen.  Clarice coughed.  _Oh man, what is this one going to be? _

                The scene cut to the side of the Starkey County Jail.  Floodlights played over the wall, crawling in playful arcs over the surface of the wall.  A pleasant-sounding guitar chord sounded.  Clarice blinked.  She knew that song.  A disembodied chorus sang from offscreen.  

                _Olè, olè, olè, olè.  Olè, olè, olè, olè.  _

Another quick Latin-sounding guitar melody played.  Colin Barksdale, dressed in a tux, emerged from a door on the left, emerging onto the catwalk on which guards had once watched prisoners in the exercise yard.  In one hand he held a large martini glass.   A floodlight moved to illuminate him.  Clarice noticed that his hair was slicked back and up in an impossible style.  She found a snicker growing in her gut and fought to keep it down.  

                _Buster fucking Poindexter? s_he thought.

                The guitar melody strummed again, and Alice Pierpont emerged from the door on the right.  A second spotlight lit her up.  She wore a dress that was covered in spangles that reflected the light back at the camera in thousands of tiny dots of light.    

                Slowly, the two advanced towards each other as horns played.  They met in the center of the catwalk, the two spotlights merging into one.  Colin took Alice's hand and spun her around.  The horns continued to blast out a brassy, fun salute for the two.  Clarice remembered this song.  

_                Crazed serial killers, and they pick **the **cheesiest song from the 1980's to put their video to, _Clarice thought, and tried to stifle a grin.  Chatiqua's take on this was likely to be pretty nasty too.  

                "Yessah…ha-ha!" he shouted, and then the horns blasted out in full voice, the two figures dancing in a burlesque cha-cha.  The camera panned down to four young women in jail blues in the middle of the exercise yard.  They were shimmying and dancing in place with expressions of fear on their faces. They were linked together in coffle by a chain at their ankles.  Occasionally they looked directly at the camera and blanched.  Clarice supposed that Chatiqua Miller was probably a damned scary director to work for.  

                Michelle sniffled and rubbed at her nose.   Josh patted her hand absently.  Clarice eyed her carefully.  Sure, she'd had a rough time of it.  She'd gotten locked up after an argument with her mom.  Probably the authorities had thought a night in lockdown would straighten the kid out.  Instead she'd ended up a bit player in a twisted drama played out by the Homicidal Productions crew.  

                All the same, Clarice thought, she seemed to like getting sympathy from Josh.  She wasn't a hundred percent sure – she never was, with victims—but she thought that Michelle was playing it up just a bit.  What was funnier was that Josh seemed to have no idea at all she was doing it.  Clarice choked back a chuckle and turned back to the screen.  

                "Eh-yes, girls," Colin called down to the shackled dancers below.  He tossed the martini glass over the side, a safe distance away from them.  Even so, two of them flinched.  The glass itself shattered like a bomb when it hit the concrete ground.  

                _Me mind on fire_

_                Me soul on fire _

_                Feeling hot hot hot_

_                Party people _

_                All around me _

_                Feeling hot hot hot_

Alice and Colin danced a fast tango on the catwalk.  Clarice found herself thinking queerly that Alice could do a lot better in heels than she ever could.  

                _What to doooo on a night like this _

_                Music sweet, I can't resist _

_                We neeeeeed a party song _

_                A funnnndamental jam_

Not dropping their speed a bit, Alice and Colin backed up.  They could dance, Clarice had to give them that.  Then she saw a figure behind them and her stomach tensed.  Now it got ugly.  

                The camera cut and zoomed in on their fast-moving feet.  At first they only had metal catwalk under their feet.  Then, as they stepped backwards as one unit, Clarice saw hair and realized what they meant to do.  

                A human face appeared under their feet.  Her stomach clenched.  

                _So we go rum-bum-bum-bum-bum    _

_                Yeah we rum-bum-bum-bum-bum _

_                Feeling hot hot hot _

_                Feeling hot hot hot _

_                Oh Lord! _

Their feet trampled the face of the bound guard under them.  Colin's polished black shoes stomped mercilessly on the guard's face.  His nose broke with an audible crunch.  Afterwards it looked like a ripe, splattered tomato.  Blood began to gush from it.  

 Alice's stiletto heels punctured and sank into flesh.  First an eye, which took on a deflated look.  Colorless liquid began to ooze out and drip down his cheek.  Then she punched through his cheek, leaving a hole that bled as copiously as his nose.  Finally, the high stiletto heel punctured his throat.  

Clarice closed her eyes.  The last guard Alice and company had dealt with was Bob Colson, back at the asylum.  He had been shot, but he'd survived.  So far as Clarice knew, he was still holding on in intensive care.  

She found herself thinking it would be more merciful if this one died.  The camera panned down to the dancing girls again.  They all looked at the camera with grins that looked frightened to Clarice.  

"_Me la la la lum bum bum," _the girls sang in high-pitched voices.  

"Me la la la lum bum bum," Michelle repeated under her breath, and shuddered.  

Clarice glanced at her curiously.  "Huh?"  

"The black girl made us rehearse that," the blonde girl explained.  "She said she would be angry with us if we didn't get it right."   She didn't specify if Chatiqua had threatened them, and Clarice didn't want to make her.  

_Boy, _Clarice thought amusedly, _maybe I ought to leave the room and leave her alone with Josh for a while.  _

The next scene wiped thoughts of amusement from her mind.  The scene cut to Alice and Colin, still in a dress and tux respectively like a jailhouse Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, now down on the exercise yard.  The camera focused on them dancing for a bit.  Behind them, Clarice could see a man in a guard's uniform tied between two posts at wrists and ankle, as if he were a human hammock.  He struggled openly in his bonds, not attempting to act any role.  Clarice wasn't sure, but it looked like the guy was wet.  

_See people rocking – hear people chanting – feeling hot hot hot _

Alice broke away from Colin, her legs working smoothly as she spun.  Twice, three times, four.  When she stopped, she was standing right by the bound guard.  In one hand she held something small and silver.  Clarice frowned.  Too small to be a knife.  She wondered where Alice had gotten it from; it _looked _like the footage of her spinning had been all one cut, and that dress didn't have any pockets.  Clarice would've reckoned her total personal storage capacity at maybe a set of car keys and a couple of Altoids. 

Alice flicked the lighter.  A small flame bloomed into existence.  Gleefully, Alice touched it to the writhing prison guard.  Almost instantly, the man lit up in a huge fireball.  Flames raced along his body, licking at his uniform.  His body turned and writhed.  It looked like he was screaming, but there was no audio on the tape. 

_It must've been gas, _Clarice thought, and suddenly felt sick. The camera stayed on the burning man with a stark eye.  It zoomed in lovingly to show his blackening features contorted in agony.  A hard thump of nausea struck Clarice hard.  For a few minutes, the man's death was recorded in unflinching detail.  It panned up to show his hair on fire, and then back out.  Next to the guard's tortured death throes, Alice and Colin continued dancing merrily, as if this horror was simply a spiffy backdrop.  

They twirled and pirouetted over past the dancing girls.  Two more jail guards sat shackled to chairs.  Alice and Colin were in the center of the scene.  They split apart, two joyful killers spreading out like a hand, and each produced a lighter this time.  Clarice noticed a dark trail of gasoline leading to each bound guard.  God, this murder was bad enough; did they _have _to seem like they were having such a good time?  

_Keep up this spirit – Come on let's do it – feelin hot hot hot _

In perfect synchronicity, like parts of some homicidal Swiss watch, the lighters dipped to the ground.  Two tongues of flame arose, and a few moments later, two more jail guards were burned to death for the audience's amusement.  

Clarice didn't feel amused.  Fury arose in her.  They were slaughtering people wholesale; decent people who did a tough job.  And they were having a _blast _doing it.  There was no guilt or regret – just dancing, an absurdly happy and cheesy song, and brutal murders.  

_It's in the air – Celebration time _

_Music sweet – captivate your mind _

The camera cut again, and in the background was another guard bound to a chair.  Clarice sighed.  A fifth person about to get set on fire.  Alice and Colin danced towards him.  Then she noticed a line on this victim's forehead that she remembered.  Her stomach tightened.  

_We haaaaave this party song – this funnnndamental jam _

Alice reached over and grabbed the top of the guard's head.  Hair, scalp, and skull all came off in one fell swoop. She had not been as neat as her father had once been; blood was clearly visible oozing from the incision.   Atop the truncated skull, naked brain gleamed.  Clarice turned away.  

_Juuuust like your dad, aren't you? _ she thought incoherently.  She would not let Alice go free, no matter _what _Dr. Lecter had to say.  She would find her and arrest her.  Or maybe just shoot her on the spot.  

Alice Pierpont did not imitate her father as Clarice might have expected.   Instead, she dug a hand into the fundamental jam of the guard's brain.  The helpless man's eyes bulged, and he seemed to watch as Alice threw the handful of his former frontal lobe playfully at the camera.  She was short – perhaps deliberately so.  The gelatinous chunk landed on the ground in front of the camera with a wet _splat _overlaid on top of the music track.  

"She got sprayed with blood the first time they did it," Michelle muttered.  

Clarice looked over at her and tried not to think about the last time a dark-haired, maroon-eyed person had opened someone's skull.  "Huh?"  

"That."  She gestured at the figure on the screen.  The guard appeared to be going into seizures.  Clarice wasn't sure; they had him tied down pretty good.  "That was the second take."  She shuddered and her lips pursed as if she might cry.  "The first take she got all sprayed with blood and they had to stop filming.  The black girl was _mad."  _

Josh put his arm around her comfortingly, and she seemed to improve by that.  Clarice didn't know whether the girl was honestly traumatized or playing for Josh's attention.  Could be a little of both, she decided.  But given what the girl had been forced to witness, Clarice thought she deserved a little bit of softness.  More than one take.  Had more than one guard died?  Probably.  _Jesus.  _

_So we go rum-bum-bum-bum _

_Yeah we rum-bum-bum-bum _

_                Feeling hot hot hot _

_                Feeling hot hot hot _

That reprised over a cut to their feet and legs dancing in a homicidal cha-cha over another guard's face.   Another guard trampled for the idle amusement of the viewer.   Clarice sighed.  _This just keeps on coming, doesn't it?  _

_                Olè, olè, olè, olè.  Olè, olè, olè, olè.   _Quick cuts flashed:  bound, trembling jail guards.  A band they seemed to have put together consisting of inmates in jail blues and sombreros.  The four dancing girls.  Alice dancing with Colin.  A group of inmates in a conga line, shackled together but still dancing.  A guard's face twitching as a drill bit dug into his forehead.  

There was something about this whole thing that was very Alice: fantastically gruesome and maniacally happy at the same time.  Clarice sighed.  They needed a break.  This couldn't last forever.  

_People in the party – hot hot hot_

_People in the party – hot hot hot _

Clarice saw another guard, soaked with gasoline, and realized that it didn't make her cringe anymore even though she knew what was coming.  This guard was not chained, but instead was penned in one of the exercise pens. It seemed the sort of thing you would keep a dog in.  A small tongue of flame touched him and he became a human fireball.  This time, the screams were overlaid over the music track.  He shrieked and gibbered, waving his arms desperately.  His flaming hands clutched the chain-link fence for several tense minutes before he finally fell back to the asphalt.  No one helped him; only the camera coldly recording his horrific death.  

_They come to the party know what they got _

_They come to the party know what they got _

Alice and Colin danced again on the screen, merry and gleeful and not killing anyone so far.  Behind them were the dancing girls, looking distinctly paler after having seen several of their guards get barbecued.   The spangles on Alice's dress reflected off their jail blues and faces.  

Then, a series of quick cuts.  

_I'm hot, _and Colin's head and shoulders dwarfed the screen, grinning maniacally and swiping back at his overly moussed hair.  

_You're hot, _and Alice appeared, grinning just as maniacally.  

_He's hot, _and a blackening, flaming human head appeared in the screen.  That hit Clarice harder than she would have thought and she turned away.  The eyes were sizzling and turning gray.  Clarice found herself feeling sort of gray herself.  

_She's hot, _and a rather greenish-looking Michelle appeared.  Seeing herself on the screen, Michelle shuddered.  Josh patted her hand comfortingly.   Then the sequence and the words repeated.  

_How you feeling?  Hot hot hot!_

_How you feeling? Hot hot hot!_

_How you feeling?  Hot hot hot!_

_How you feeling?  Hot hot hot!  _

There was one last shot of Alice and Colin, dancing with absurdly happy grins.  Then the yard, empty and absent.  Clarice sucked in breath and wondered what the finale would be.  

The answer was as sudden as it was large-scale.  At one moment the exercise yard of the jail loomed, a symbol of what happened to those who did not obey society's rules.  In the next, there was an amazingly loud _boom.  _Licks of flame appeared momentarily, and then, seemingly violating the laws of physics, the immense walls blew outward and collapsed.  Steel girders and framework were exposed where concrete had once been.  Another explosion echoed, the camera recording the ruin with a loving eye, and the walls of the former Starkey County Jail collapsed into rubble.  Virtually nothing was left.  There were a few faint screams on the audio, but Clarice did not know if they were real or foleyed in.

Then the famous words:  _This has been a Homicidal Production.  Copyright 2004.  _

Clarice sighed.  She'd seen the remnants and rubble of the jail when they'd arrived.  ANFO bombs; they already knew that Alice and company had been seen buying both ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.  One set of bombs had blown the walls off the one side that they'd been filming; the others had been set to explode the entire building, below in the basement.  

Just for her own sake, she got up and walked back to glance out the window.  There, across the way, was the smoking crater that had replaced the jail.  Black smoke poured high into the air and across the Indiana plain.   Oddly for them, they had herded most of the guards and prisoners out of the jail beforehand; their goal was filming mayhem, not mass destruction.  Most of them had been found in a maintenance shed on the grounds of the jail.

All the same, they had to be captured.  _Had _to be.  

Without turning around, Clarice Starling vowed not to rest until Alice, Chatiqua and Colin were safely behind bars or dead.  

"Michelle, thanks for watching this with us," she said, still staring at the crater.  "Josh, how bout you take her down to another room and get a formal statement from her."  

"All right," Josh said from behind her. Chairs scraped.  Clarice still watched the crater.  Okay, they hadn't committed mass murder; they easily could have.  Still, the murders they _had _committed, and all this destruction…this _had _to be stopped.  It could not be permitted to continue.  

Still, she had no idea where they were now.  Dr. Lecter was also out there somewhere, and he had the file.  His goal was only to save his daughter; hers was to capture all three.  

_By God, I am going to catch them, _Clarice Starling thought, _but I'll be damned if I know how._


	14. Mistakes

                Dr. Hannibal Lecter was surprised.  

                He had bought himself a laptop on this trip, figuring he would need it.  To learn how to dial in to his ISP was not difficult.  He had gotten an anonymous ISP and was relatively confident that his online peregrinations would not be able to catch him.  

                His web cruising was relatively innocuous; he stuck to the major news media and the _Tattler's_ website.  He'd always had a bit of a soft spot for the _Tattler.  _Besides, the _Tattler _evinced no shame about printing contraband crime reports and such.  It served his purposes far better than the legitimate media.  

                _Cannibal's killer daughter destroys Indiana jail!  Chaos and mayhem in her wake!  _All very silly, but it did tell Dr. Lecter what he wanted to know.  His wayward daughter was in a small corner of Indiana, or she had been.  

                The file he had borrowed from Clarice told him more about his prey's whereabouts.  Despite the fact that the _Tattler _accused Alice of masterminding the stunt at the Starkey County Jail, the FBI file stated that Chatiqua Miller was most likely pulling the strings.  It wasn't in the style of Alice's prior killings.  

                He had an intellectual interest in Miss Miller, and it seemed that she had done a great deal in helping to free his daughter.   Her destruction of the Starkey County Jail pleased him.  Dr. Lecter found a certain pleasure in the collapse of any place of confinement.  For that, he personally wished her the best.  Still, his goal was to obtain custody of his daughter, and Miss Miller would simply have to cope as best she could.  He had hoped to use her as a bargaining chip; Clarice could have Chatiqua and Colin, and he would have his daughter.  Unfortunately, Clarice had not been willing to work with him on that.  

                In any case, he had to figure out where they would strike next.  

                It was hard to pick out a pattern, but Dr. Lecter believed he might have found one.  The Homicidal Productions crew liked to copy.  Chatiqua had talent at her work, but it was fundamentally derivative; she copied things she had seen other people do.  What she was good at was taking pieces of pop culture and turning them into murderous snuff films.  

                She would have planned, Dr. Lecter thought.  Somehow or another, she had kept Alice's bipolar disorder from making them noticeable.  According to Clarice's notes on the file, she had hoped that might bring them around.   This gave him more food for thought.  

                Clarice's mistake had been in trying to track _Alice, _not Chatiqua.  It was Chatiqua who was the mastermind.  She was the one who Clarice should have been tracking.  

                The murder scenes told him that she had a particular plan.  Dr. Lecter did not think she had randomly chosen the sites.  It was possible that she had, but he was inclined to think otherwise.  This had the hallmarks of an organized killer, to use the FBI's simplistic means of looking at it.  

                If she had already chosen the sites of her films, then could he predict the next one?  

                Dr. Lecter believed that he could.  He might not be sure; there wasn't enough evidence for him to be a hundred percent sure.  Their travels had been all over the place; clearly, they were attempting to evade authorities by swinging widely north and south in their peregrination west.  

                Their films had also become more complex and required greater numbers of people and scenery.  The first ones had been rather simplistic.  This last one had required a lot of planning and had clearly been picked out beforehand.  He did not think there would be a return to simpler ideas; Chatiqua's ego was growing.  The fact remained:  where would she go next?

                Still, there had to be something.  Dr. Lecter surfed the web, looking for tourist attractions, parks, anything that might attract the young woman's eye.  For some reason he felt that the next one would be within two hours or so of the jail site.  Far away enough that the police crawling over the rubble of the jail would not catch them; close enough that she would be able to set up and film relatively quickly.  In that, Dr. Lecter thought, she was like most killers.  Realizing her vision was almost an addiction with her.  She would never stop.  

                Carefully, he began to form a list, the words marching across the paper in his bizarrely machinelike writing.  A nearby wildlife park; perhaps they would try feeding someone to the lions.  A vacated mansion in rural Indiana, right near the border, close to the Interstate.  A sports hall of fame; one never knew. 

                When he was done, he closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to bridge the gap between himself and his prey.  To each one he assigned a number reflecting his belief where they would strike next.  He wasn't able to explain why he thought the way he did, and that displeased him.   Dr. Lecter did not like leaving things to chance.    

                It was hard for him to concentrate on the list.  His daughter was his duty.  He had to recover her and get her somewhere where she would be safe.  All the same, Clarice Starling's face kept creeping into the back of his mind.  

  …

                Clarice strode from the Starkey County courthouse and pressed her lips together.  She'd gotten everything she could from the Starkey County authorities.  The Feds had sent up an explosives team to sift over the rubble of the jail.  Still, she knew there was precious little they would come up with that would help her find her prey.  

                Josh followed her out a few moments later, and for a moment or two they stared across the street at the wreckage of the Starkey County Jail.  They'd figured out that Alice and company had dropped by agricultural supply companies.  Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil; the old reliable standby.  They were easy to make and stable.  

                "God," Clarice said thoughtfully.  "I can't believe they did this."  

                Josh nodded.  "At least they didn't kill everyone in the jail," he pointed out.  "They made efforts to evacuate everybody before they blew the jail.  Honestly, it would've been _easier _to leave everyone there."  

                "They're still dangerous," Clarice said.  "They didn't kill everyone, but they _did _kill a lot of people.  Mostly guards.  The inmates they left alone." 

                Josh shrugged.  "Not that one girl," he said.  "She'll need some counseling after all that."  

                Clarice chuckled.  "Oh, she'll get by all right, I think."  Then she glanced at him.  "I think she sort of had a thing for you, you know."  

                Josh appeared somewhat taken aback.  "Me?  You've got to be kidding."  

                Clarice smiled and shook her head.  "No, actually, I'm not.  She thought you were cute," she gibed.  "Maybe you can look her up when this is all over."  

                A flush of red crept out of his collar up his cheeks.  She chuckled again and decided to quit teasing him about it.  Yet it was true; he just hadn't seen it.  Then again, his experience with women had included Alice Pierpont.  Clarice supposed that would've skewed him on the subject of relationships a lot…in fact, about as much as her relationship with Hannibal Lecter had skewed her.  

                She let out a tired sigh.  "I'm tired," she said.  "This whole thing is exhausting.  I…I have no idea how to catch them, any more than I did when this started."  Admitting it was hard, but Josh of all people could understand.  The Homicidal Productions crew was a fiendishly difficult riddle to solve.  To add to the fun, every day they were free, innocent lives were at risk. 

                Josh nodded agreeably.  "There's a Motel 6 out on the highway," he said.  "Crawford got us rooms out there.  He wants us to stick around, see if anything comes out of the investigation of…,"  he gestured at the wreckage of the jail.    

                Clarice sighed.  She didn't think there would be; the Homicidal Productions crew had the luck of the devil.   But one never knew.  And it wasn't like she had any better ideas.  She _was _tired.  A bit of sleep would probably do her a world of good.  She exhaled heavily.   

                "Okay," she said.  "You can stay here if you want.  I could use a shower and some sleep."  

                Josh shook his head.  "That sounds good, actually."  

                Their car was a rather soulless Caprice, signed out of the Indianapolis FBI's motor pool.  Clarice passed Josh the keys; she was tired and didn't want to drive.  He drove fast but well, perhaps knowing that his FBI ID would keep him immune from speeding tickets.  

                She thought desultorily about this whole thing as trees flicked past in the window.  Alice and Chatiqua and Colin, out there somewhere planning their next movie.  And the joker in the deck, Dr. Lecter, out there hunting his daughter.  What if he got to her first?  He might not save Chatiqua and Colin, but he would take away Alice, and Clarice meant to have Alice back behind bars no matter what.  Alice had set all this in motion, and she would pay for that.  

                The exit ramp was not far away.  Josh took the exit a bit too fast for Clarice's taste, but she was too tired to object.  Her feet hurt in these damn shoes.  Even though she might be going over a crime scene, Crawford still expected 'professional dress'.  Why weren't sneakers professional dress?  It'd be more practical, that was for damn sure.  But Crawford thought she ought to pick through rubble consisting of concrete and steel rebar in low-heeled pumps.    What would ol' Crawford think of the stilettos Alice had been sporting? 

                She exhaled slowly, feeling the air hiss over her tongue.   Her conscience told her not to be so harsh on Crawford.  She was tired and cranky and troubled over other things,  and she shouldn't take everything out on him.   All she needed was a shower, comfy slippers, and some stupid movie on TV that she could zone out to and get her mind off the killers she was hunting.  Just a few hours of relaxation and then eight hours of sleep would do her a world of good.  

                And that was what she did.  The rooms at the motel were pretty much the same as hotel rooms all over America: clean, sanitized, and anonymous.  Josh had a room a few doors down, but she had a room to herself.  That was just as well.  Her own little domain for right now.  She bid Josh a good night and asked him to leave her be unless he absolutely needed her for something.  

                So she shucked off her suit and enjoyed a nice, hot shower in her anonymous plastic  shower under her anonymous, plain metal showerhead.  Then she wrapped her head in a towel, pulled on a T-shirt, flannel pants, and thick fuzzy socks.  With some pleasure she plonked herself down on the bed and popped on the TV.  There had to be something mindless on she could find in order to relax.  

                The TV did not disappoint her.  There was indeed some silly movie that she put on and promptly ignored.  The bed was comfortable and she was content, finally able to unburden herself a little.  She could catch her serial killer in the morning.  

                Her eyes slipped closed in the flickering light of the TV.  She didn't fall asleep, exactly, but drifted slowly into the borderlands between asleep and awake.  It was comfortable and warm and that was fine with her for right now.  It was a good place to be.  

                She barely heard the _click _of the passkey opening her hotel room door, nor did she hear the silent padding footsteps moving over to her bed until it was too late.  What brought her to full wakefulness was the sudden bitter smell of chloroform on the cloth that had been clapped over her mouth and nose.  

                Clarice's eyes flew open and she struck out instinctively with one hand.  Her warrior's training was strong.  But her warrior's training also knew what sort of position she was in:  to be blunt, she was fucked.  Her gun was over on the table, and her captor was atop her, one hand holding the chloroform-soaked towel, one pinning down her right hand with unimaginable strength.  She'd been caught napping and she wasn't going to win this one.  

                She twisted, but her captor had the drop on her and she could feel herself getting dizzy.  She bucked and fishtailed and struggled to get free.  She kept fighting until the very end, but she knew she was lost.  Above her, maroon eyes sparkled with pleasure, and surprisingly full lips curved in a smile, quite red against pale skin.  And then Clarice Starling finally flagged and slid into the darkness.


	15. Unwilling Star

  


"Reesey!" Alice Pierpont said gleefully, and clapped her hands. "It's _great _to see you." 

Clarice was not so happy to see Alice. She lolled in a chair, still dizzy from the chloroform. Its stink dwelled in her nostrils and the back of her throat. Her hands were cuffed behind her back. Slowly, her eyes slitted and then opened. 

She was in a small room. It didn't seem to be much more than a closet. With her chair and the madwoman in front of her, there was little room. One wall held a large mirror that showed her a duplicate of Alice leaning down in front of her. 

Alice was dressed oddly. She wore what looked like a costume to Clarice. Black maryjanes with tap heels that Alice clearly enjoyed tapping. _Click, clack, click , clack, clickclackclickclackclickclack. _Well, that was what happened when you gave an insane woman tap shoes. Blue socks and black fishnets under them. Spangly short-shorts and an equally spangly bustier. Over that, she wore a sweatshirt that didn't seem to be part of the costume. Her hair was drawn back in a tight ponytail and her hair gleamed like ebony. 

Clarice groaned and stared at the madwoman. 

"What...the hell? What do you people want with me?" she asked. She was handcuffed in a room with Alice Pierpont. This wasn't good. 

"You _and _Joshie," Alice corrected. "He's in the next dressing room. He is _soooo _cute. Looking at him just brings it all back, I must say... Speaking of which, do you like your dressing room, Reesey?" 

They had Josh too. Shit. So far Alice's obsession with Josh had not awakened. Or maybe Clarice had been out for a little while. 

She looked around the room. There wasn't much she could do or use. Maybe she could talk to Alice. In her captor's eyes she saw maniacal glee. _Okay. She's up. That sucks; she's more likely to listen when she's down. _

__"It's all right," she said casually, struggling to buy time. "What...just what is it you want to do to me, Alice?" 

"You and Josh are going to be in the next movie!" Alice said, and clapped her hands again. "Isn't that _great? _It'll be fun. I promise! Even though Teek can be a tough director." 

Clarice let out breath slowly and watched Alice carefully. She seemed to be _somewhat _lucid. Sure, she was manic, but she seemed to be in contact with reality. Although if she thought Clarice was going to cooperate, she had another thing coming. 

"Alice," Clarice said calmly, "I don't...I don't _want _to be in a movie." _Particularly one of yours, _she added mentally. 

Alice sighed. "But it'll be fun, Reesey. Come on, live a little." 

Clarice swallowed and tried to remember that her captor did, in some insane way, want Clarice to like her. Maybe that was a way in. "I don't want to be in your movie," she repeated firmly but gently. 

"Somehow I knew you would say that," Alice said, and appeared resigned. "Hold on a moment, will you?" 

She left the room. Clarice watched her for a moment and then tried to take stock of this new development. Her wrists were handcuffed. She could feel them. Any key in her pocket or waistband? She couldn't reach; they must have tied the handcuffs to the back of the chair or something. Trying to feel around her waist for cell phone or gun or _anything _was hard. There was nothing there. They'd stripped her of equipment but good. Dammit. 

Her time alone was brief. A few minutes later, Alice came back into the room with a young woman in tow. The hostage was also bound. Alice expertly forced the young woman to kneel and grabbed a handful of hair in her left hand, forcing her prisoner's head back. In the other, Alice produced a long Tanto knife, similar to those she had used before. 

"Reesey, this is Caitlyn," Alice said formally. "Caitlyn, this is Reesey." 

Caitlyn's eyes were wide with panic as the blade approached her face. She stared at Clarice in desperate hope and terror. Alice controlled her hostage easily with one hand. The other piloted the wicked edge of the knife against the woman's cheek, just below the eye. Clarice bit her lip. 

"We've done this before, haven't we, Reesey?" Alice asked. "Now look. I know you don't want to be in our movie. And you're _really _going to hate your costume. I know that for a fact. But the thing is, Teek gets all _grumpy _and out of sorts when she doesn't get her way, and it's enough to drive everyone else _crazy, _and I don't want to put up with it. So I'll tell you what. Caitlyn here is my hostage to your good behavior. If you're a good little actress and do what you're told, she will be juuuuust fine. If you don't cooperate, then I'm going to cut Caitlyn's throat right here in front of you. You'll see it, and you'll know that it happened because you wouldn't cooperate." 

Clarice hissed out air from between her teeth. This was the maddening thing about Alice: she remembered Clarice's weakness for helpless victims. Would she follow through on it? Clarice didn't want to find out. When Alice got angry, restraint tended to go out the window. 

"All right," Clarice said slowly. 

Alice smiled brightly. "There," she said chirpily. "See? Was that so bad?" She departed the room for another few minutes and returned without her hostage. All the same, the threat remained. An innocent life hung in the balance. 

"I'm going to give you your costume," Alice explained. "Then once you've changed, I'm going to come back and get you. Colin will have our little insurance policy. So cooperate and everything's fine. Otherwise her blood is on your hands." 

For a long moment Clarice wondered how it was that Alice could be at one time a likable if disturbed woman and yet could discuss murdering an innocent hostage so calmly. It was a stark reminder of how dangerous she was. 

Calmly, Alice dropped a bundle in front of her and then unlocked her handcuffs. Getting those off felt good, and Clarice stretched. Alice eyed her calmly from those not-quite-stable maroon eyes. 

"OK, Reesey," Alice said. "Now you get changed, and then I'm going to take you down to the set. Don't put up a fuss." She smiled coolly. "Caitlyn is _counting _on it." 

She left, closing the door behind her so that Clarice could change in privacy. A glance around the room indicated that it had been emptied of anything she could use as a weapon. Dammit. Alice was just outside the door, waiting for her to finish. Clarice could hear her clacking her heels as she waited. 

She felt constrained and constricted. Even if she overpowered Alice – which wasn't likely – there was an innocent life at risk. Alice would have no compunction about carrying out her threat to kill the girl. Clarice knew that all too well. 

For now, she'd have to play along and hope for a better chance to get away. Might as well have a look at this costume. She prodded at it and was not happy with what she saw: a white dress that buttoned in the front. For her legs a pair of pantyhose were provided, along with a pair of white maryjanes to finish the ensemble. 

"Ewwwww," Clarice muttered. 

"_Ree-sey," _Alice yelled from beyond the door, "quit complaining and get changed." 

Clarice cast an angry glance at the door. Well, there wasn't any way out of this, so she swallowed her feelings and did it. The dress was a thing of horror: the hem exposed a lot more thigh than she would've ever willingly chosen. Then after a moment, she realized she had been wrong. It wasn't a dress, it was a lab coat. Still, it was too short for her liking. She didn't think so much of her legs had been on public display since she had been a toddler in diapers. How the hell could her entire bottom half itch and be exposed at the same time? 

It annoyed the fuck out of her, to put it bluntly, and so she was off guard when Alice re-entered the room and cuffed her hands in front of her again. Calmly, Alice studied her up and down. Surprisingly, she beamed. 

"You look _great, _Reesey!" Alice trilled. _Clickclackclickclackclickclack. _ "Now we have to get you down to the set. For makeup. Then Teek will go over your part with you." 

Clarice sighed. Makeup. Another indignity. How much of this was she going to have to put up with? There had to be some way to escape. Something she hadn't thought of. On the other hand, once she got down to the set – whatever that meant – she was going to be supervised by three psychopaths, not just the one now. 

All the same, she didn't think Alice would kill her. Dr. Lecter's troubled daughter had the opportunity – several times – and had not. Even when this whole lunacy had begun, when Alice had escaped the asylum, she had asked her colleagues not to kill Clarice. 

Would that hold? Would Chatiqua Miller feel the same way? Clarice had her doubts. But she was handcuffed anyway, so the most sensible thing to to was play along. Alice's hand was firm but not cruel on her upper arm. She'd led plenty of prisoners around that way, and she knew very well that you could express your displeasure with a simple squeeze. But Alice didn't. 

"Alice," Clarice said calmly but firmly, "have you ever thought about what it is you're doing? You're going to get caught one of these days." 

Alice shrugged. "Not before we get to Hollywood," she said cheerfully. 

Clarice wet her lips. "You don't know that," she added. "If you gave yourself up, it would go easier on you." 

Alice put her free hand on her chin in a burlesque gesture of thinking. "Hmmm. Give myself up and go back to the loony bin or face murder charges. On the other hand, I can keep on making movies with Teek and having fun and being free. Let me ponder that for a little bit, Reesey. I'll get back to you, okay?" 

She hauled Clarice into a large, circular room. It was white with garish red trim. The smell of paint hung heavy in the air: they must've painted it for their movie. Whatever it was supposed to be. One half of the room sloped up gently. 

The worst part of being handcuffed was being unable to scratch. She felt exposed and uncomfortable and wished with all her might for a pair of pants. The room was full of people. 

Perhaps ten hostages, all dressed in black, sat on the upper slope. Each of them was bound. They looked at Clarice with some fear, thinking her to be one of their tormentors. Josh Graham stood next to Colin. Josh was also handcuffed, and he was wearing only a lab coat as well. A pair of brown glasses sat on his face. He gave Clarice a nervous look. 

Colin Barksdale wore a leather vest, jeans, and cowboy boots. His hair was slicked back in an exaggerated pompadour. Alice chuckled when she saw him, but eyed Josh with a hunger Clarice didn't care for. For that matter, she didn't care for the way Colin's eyes traced up and down her own nyloned legs. 

Chatiqua Miller stood over on the corner – well, the edge – of the room. She, too, was dressed oddly: she wore a green dress, fishnets, and extremely high heels. She also had more eye makeup on than Clarice had ever seen outside of a circus. A frizzy black wig sat on her head. She was fussing with a camera, but abandoned it to come over and eye Clarice calmly. 

"Teek is going to be acting in this movie, too, instead of just directing," Alice said perkily. She abandoned her grip on Clarice's arm to lazily drape her arms around Josh's neck. "Oooooh," she said dreamily. "Seeing you again just brings it _all _back, Joshie." 

Chatiqua's light brown eyes seemed feral as they touched Clarice's. A chill ran down her spine. Despite the ridiculous clothing, despite Alice's manic antics, despite it all, there was something extremely creepy about the black woman. She'd been wrong. Alice wasn't the leader of the pack here: Chatiqua was. 

"Hello, Clarice," Chatiqua said calmly, just as calmly as when they had last met, when Chatiqua had cold-bloodedly shot her and left her in the parking lot. "I look forward to working with you." 

It took rather more will than Clarice thought not to spit in her face. "Let me go," she said briskly. 

Chatiqua chuckled and shook her head. "Why would I do that? This is a lot of fun. You'll see. You might even survive this go-round. Alice likes you, you know. Now look. The dancer's scenes have already been filmed..._except _the finale. I thought it would be better to do it before you were brought out of your dressing room." 

Clarice shook her head. "The FBI will know we're missing. I'm not doing anything you want, you psychopath." Her hard blue eyes were unflinching. 

Chatiqua shrugged. "Alice, girl, could you interrupt grinding your hip into his groin there? Do me a favor and go bring Caitlyn out here. Agent Starling seems to have forgotten our understanding." 

Clarice took a deep breath, sighed, and hung her head. 

Chatiqua patted her cheek. "That's a good girl," she quipped. "By now I'm sure you've figured out your role. If not, don't worry, just follow your marks taped on the floor there." Then she clapped her hands. 

"_Places, _everyone! Scene one, take one!" 

  



	16. Changes

_Author's note: Yes, after almost eight months, this story rises from the grave. Reviews are gratefully appreciated. _

It was time to start filming.

Clarice stood, hands cuffed in front of her, ankles shackled, itchy and uncomfortable in her pantyhose, lab coat flapping around her. There was a black taped X on the floor on which Chatiqua had ordered her to stand. She stood on it, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Were they going to be Chatiqua's latest victims?

Josh stood next to her, also dressed only in a lab coat. His bare legs stuck out the bottom, and he shifted his feet uncomfortably. His legs were skinny, she noticed. He seemed quite embarrassed to be filmed without pants. He, too, was handcuffed. They'd given him white socks. Clarice would've liked the opportunity to switch.

Chatiqua's heels clicked as she walked over to Clarice. Her light brown eyes perused her captive calmly. She pointed wordlessly to the X's taped on the floor. Clarice eyed her back hatefully. She was captive but not afraid; her hands might be cuffed but her head was unbowed.

The first take had been blown, apparently, when Clarice had not moved to her mark as quickly as Chatiqua demanded. For that, Chatiqua's hostage now sported a long but shallow wound across her cheek. It had been a warning, and Clarice had taken it as such. All the same, that girl would now sport a scar on her face for the rest of her life. And for what? It was meaningless, an evil so petty that she swore before everything she held dear that Chatiqua would pay for it and pay dearly.

She watched her foe carefully. Chatiqua was acting annoyed; she couldn't be in front of the camera _and _behind it at the same time, and it seemed to bug her.

"Goddammit, Starling," Chatiqua said, "next time, _make _that mark on cue. From what I heard, you were smarter than this."

Clarice wanted nothing more than to spit in her face. All the same, an innocent life was in the balance, and Clarice cared about that. Chatiqua didn't. So she let her angry spit fill her mouth. For now, it was all she could do.

"Yes, _ma'am,_" Clarice said hatefully.

Chatiqua's heavily made-up lips curved up in a smile. "That's the attitude, Starling. That's what I _like _to hear."

Beside her, Josh jumped suddenly. Clarice and Chatiqua both turned. On his other side, Alice turned away and smiled guiltily. The hem of Josh's lab coat fluttered back down. He looked furiously embarrassed, his cheeks flaming scarlet.

"Girl, dammit," Chatiqua said, "what are you _doing _to him?"

Alice seemed humorously abject. "I was just checking to see if his butt looked any different," she explained with no shame. "It's been a while."

Chatiqua sighed. "All right," she said. "Look. You can play with Josh all you want, _after _the filming."

Alice's weird maroon eyes lit up. "Really?" she asked, sounding for all the world like a little girl at Christmas.

"Yes," Chatiqua assured her. "You can take him upstairs and do whatever your little heart – or any _other _part of you – desires. But first, we film. Now take your place."

Alice sighed, brushed off her bustier, and strode over to a red ladder they had leaned against the wall. It had just been painted before filming and the aroma of paint hung heavy in the air, making Clarice a little dizzy. It didn't help her mood any, that was for sure.

"This first line is really _not _easy for me, you know," she said with ponderous dignity. Incongruously, she draped herself over the ladder languidly.

"_Places," _Chatiqua said. She glanced over at a young blonde man standing by a red cage sort of a thing. That threw Clarice and made her think of the cage Alice had kept her in. It looked like this one had been made on the spot, out of wooden dowels. All the same, Alice and cages did not make for happy memories.

Chatiqua wandered over to the door and stood in front of it. Clarice flinched because she knew what was coming next. A red light they'd mounted on the wall flashed three times, each time announced with a shrill, loud _beep. _The door lowered itself to the ground like a drawbridge. On the other side, Colin Barksdale was actually doing it with a rope while he tried to film at the same time. She knew that much from the first take. Alice looked for a moment and then scurried back to where Josh and Clarice stood while she was safely out of camera range.

_No one threatens hostages if **she **screws up, _Clarice thought angrily.

The camera clicked off, and Chatiqua went back to her preferred spot behind the camera. It shifted to point at Alice, who took a deep breath and held her arms out excitedly. Josh stood beside her, and Clarice beside him. She held onto his sleeve with her bound hands. Otherwise, that girl would pay the price again.

Clarice flinched again, for the same reason. She knew what was coming. Alice had quite a set of lungs on her, when you came down to it.

"_EDDIE!" _Alice shrieked. Then she ran forward, plastering her body up against the red ladder. Clarice sighed.

Behind the door were several plastic blocks that the industrious Homicidal Productions crew had stacked up. The grumbling of a motorcycle engine came from behind them. Chatiqua came up to take over the camera.

Colin Barksdale piloted a large green motorcycle out from behind the plastic blocks and drove it out into the circular room in which they all stood. He wore jeans, a leather vest, a silver helmet, and sunglasses. He bounced the motorcycle out into the room and stared about myopically at them as if he had never seen them before.

Chatiqua had been good enough to explain that the actual soundtrack would largely be dealt with after the filming. Most of it was music. However, for their benefit, the music began to play on a small boom box out of camera range.

Clarice sighed. This was horrifically amusing. Although it would be worse as things went on. A merry electric guitar began to kick in.

Colin removed his helmet and tossed it on the floor. Under that, his hair had been dyed black and greased into a ridiculous pompadour. A moment later, his glasses followed suit. He turned in a merry circle.

"Whooo!" he crowed. Then he turned on his heel and faced Josh and Clarice. A meaty finger pointed at them in crazed accusation. He sang along with the vocals on the stereo.

_Whatever happened to Saturday night, _

_When you dressed up and you felt alright?_

_It don't seem the same since cosmic light _

_Came into my life, I thought I was divine _

"But you're not, you're meat loaf," Clarice muttered under her breath. Chatiqua had demanded that Clarice stamp her feet and act like a scared little piece of fluff. She would only do that if she saw the crazed black girl looking at her. She stole a glance over at Chatiqua and decided she wasn't watching.

Alice ran up to Colin, grinning maniacally, and embraced him. The two danced for a step or two, two merry killers doing just what they wanted to do in an world gone insane. Clarice sighed and glanced around. Alice and Colin were dancing; Chatiqua was filming. Could she and Josh make a run for it? Then her shoulders sagged. She might be able to save her own ass, and Josh might be able to save his, but there were always the victims behind who would pay the price of Chatiqua's fury.

_I used to go for a ride with a chick who'd go _

_And listen to the music on the radio _

Alice skittered away from Colin, grinning madly, and danced away, the heels on her tap shoes clacking. Clarice took a breath. She had truly grown to hate those tap shoes, and she had a feeling that whatever was coming wasn't going to be pretty.

And she was correct. Alice scooped up a large boombox and advanced on one of the bound victims. With a beaming grin she smashed it down on their head with all her strength. All her strength proved to be pretty good, all things considered. The boombox broke in half and blood began to trickle down the unfortunate's forehead. Not deterred, Alice simply picked up the largest chunk of the boombox and continued. Agonized shrieks rose from under her.

Clarice turned away. This was horrible: a victim right in front of her eyes and there was nothing she could do. The chains on her wrists and ankles assured that.

_Saxophone was blowing in a rock-and-roll show_

_It felt pretty good. Woo! You really had a good time _

Colin stepped up next to Alice, wielding an equally manic grin and a saxophone. He, too, brought it down on another victim. Hollow brassy sounds echoed as he used it as a bludgeon. Muffled screams and groans When he finally stopped, the saxophone was dented and bloody.

_Hot patootie, bless my soul, _

_I really love that rock and roll _

_Hot patootie, bless my soul _

_I really love that rock and roll _

Colin scooped Alice up and deposited her on the motorcycle. It looked to Clarice as if Alice was trying quite hard not to laugh. She grabbed his hand and brought it to her mouth, then stopped and noticeably looked over at Josh with a look that for all the world seemed guilty.

The sound cut off. She looked around at the black girl, knowing already what was coming.

"_Cut,_" she heard, and flinched.

Chatiqua stomped over, annoyed. Alice looked at her impassively, the guilt vanishing from her face. She eyed her friend with equanimity.

"What?" Alice said calmly.

"You're distracted. You're not making your mark," Chatiqua said, anger lining her voice.

Alice made a small gesture. "Sorry," she said.

"Dammit," Chatiqua said, "this is the _third take." _

"So what?" Alice said, unbowed. "I didn't mess up the first one. Reesey did."

Chatiqua let out a hissing sigh through small, clenched teeth. Clarice swallowed. _They're both sociopaths. Alice doesn't seem to give a crap what Chatiqua wants, and Chatiqua isn't getting what she wants, so she's about ready to blow her stack. _

Was there a way to try and split these two monsters apart? Where did Colin fit into the mix? Clarice took a step forward and her chains clinked. Both Alice and Chatiqua looked over at her, and she stepped back sheepishly, wondering if she'd blown an opportunity.

"Maybe we're all a little tense," Alice said calmly. "Maybe...we should stop a while. We can do another take in a little bit. The set isn't going anywhere."

Chatiqua eyed her friend tightly. Yes, Clarice though, she was annoyed. Sociopaths usually were, when they didn't get their way. "And what are we supposed to do with Starling and Graham?" she asked, her tone half-sarcastic.

"You can put Reesey back in her dressing room. I might remind you, Teek, the chick _is _in chains. She's not going anywhere. As for Josh...I'll keep an eye on him for you." A cool smile crossed Alice's face. It made a chill run down Clarice's spine. That was more like the Alice of old.

Chatiqua stared at her friend, breathing slowly. Clarice found herself watchful. This didn't seem to have happened before. How would she respond? Was there a way out here? She glanced over at Josh. He, too, was watching, although he seemed nervous. That made sense. He knew what Alice wanted from him.

Then, surprisingly, Chatiqua put up her hands and smiled disarmingly.

"All right," she said. "We'll do it your way. Colin, please put Agent Starling back in her dressing room. Make sure she doesn't go anywhere."

Calmly, Colin proceeded forward and grabbed her arm. He was strong; she could tell from the grip. He pulled her forward. She didn't think she'd have had much of a chance against him in a fair fight. Chained at wrists and ankles, she had no chance at all.

"Come on," he said calmly, and Clarice went. Alice beamed and approached Josh, grabbing him eagerly. She heard Josh ask what she was going to do to him, and she faintly heard Alice reply that it wouldn't hurt. Then she was out of the room and being dragged down the hall.

She slowed a bit, the ankle cuffs yanking painfully.

"You know you're going down," she said softly. "This can't go on forever. You know it can't. Let me go now, and I'll see that they remember that."

Colin shrugged. He seemed distant somehow, as if distracted by other things.

"If I let you go, we'll all go to prison," he said. His voice was strangely soft and reflective. It wasn't the way you expected a violent killer to be. "At this point, we'd be looking at death row or life in prison. Not exactly the sort of odds I like."

"Chatiqua's the big fish. We make deals all the time, you know that. You've got a record, Colin. You know this isn't going to go on forev--,"

Her voice was cut off by a sudden flash of pain from her wrists. Colin jerked the handcuffs down cruelly, digging them into her wrists. She bit her lip and fought to keep the startled shriek inside.

"Agent Starling." His voice was cool, but still bothered. "I'm not a cruel guy, regardless of what you may think. But right now...right now I don't want to hear it, okay? I'm gonna stick you back in your room and let Chatiqua figure out what to do with you."

Normally she'd have had a few choice names for him for that, but there seemed to be bigger fish handy for the fryer. Something had just happened. Something big. Her mind spun, trying to figure out a way to turn this to her advantage.

"You upset that she wants to be with Josh?" Clarice asked.

Colin let out a sigh. _That's it, isn't it, bucko? Maybe Alice doesn't know it, but you like her. _

"Agent Starling...don't get me mad, all right?" His voice sounded aggravated, the voice of a man trying to be polite to a rude houseguest. "You know we've got a hostage. Just go in your dressing room and shut...be quiet for a little bit."

For a moment he reminded her crazily of both Brigham and Dr. Lecter. Brigham had once asked her if they could be more than friends, and she'd told him no. She could see those same lines of repressed anger and disappointment in Colin Barksdale's face. His attempt to control himself reminded her of the dark psychiatrist, who valued courtesy more than other people's lives.

He opened the dressing room door and pushed her inside. Yes, he wasn't happy about this turn of events at all. She could see his jaw tighten as he pushed her into her chair and tied her to it. Then the door slammed shut and locked. She tilted her head and tried to examine her bonds, her ears straining for the sounds of him in the hallway at the same time. He was standing outside in the hall, she thought. Just standing there and breathing.

Then she could hear his footsteps leaving the hall, counterpointed by another set approaching. Alice? Didn't sound that way.

"Dammit," she heard Chatiqua say. "I...I can't _believe _she did that."

Colin took a moment or two before speaking. "Maybe she just wanted a break," he said.

"She got one. She's upstairs with him now."

Another weighty pause. "With Graham."

"Yes, with Graham. Maybe if she gets her itch scratched she'll do this take right." Chatiqua sounded unreasonably nettled, as if the entire world had fallen to pieces. That wasn't uncommon. Unfortunately, it could precede some very, very bad things.

"Maybe," Colin said slowly.

"Well, she damn well better. One more take. That's it. After that...after that, Colin, I want you to...take care of them."

Colin paused again, this time from surprise rather than anger. "Do you think that's smart? The FBI will come down on us with both feet."

"They're doing that now. It won't make any difference and taking care of these two will slow them down. We don't need to film it. I don't want Alice to see it, either."

_Oh fuck, _Clarice thought and jerked her bonds uselessly. Adrenalin poured into her system. What the hell was she gonna do? She didn't want to die in this stupid costume.

"I really don't think killing FBI agents is gonna do anything other than put a world of hurt on us," Colin observed, and she could hear his voice trembling. "I mean, I wouldn't mind killing him, but--,"

Chatiqua cut him off. "Colin, _please. _I need you now. You've helped me a lot, and we couldn't have made our art without you. Just do this for me as you've done...so many other things. I assure you, it'll be okay. Trust me. Alice will get over it. I have...I have everything under complete control."

"I don't know," Colin said mournfully.

"I do. Trust me. One more take...and then we'll just put two in the back of their heads."


	17. Under Pressure

Pressure. The pressure weighed down heavily on him.

The room was small, dark and cramped. It struck Josh as vaguely reminiscent of a madhouse's cells. Unfortunately for him, this madhouse was run _by _the patients. And one of them was atop him now.

Alice Pierpont's macabre maroon eyes stared down into his with lunatic passion. Her lips, oddly red against her pale skin, curved up in a pleased grin. Her flesh was warm against his, but damn if he wasn't scared shitless. One of his wrists was handcuffed above him; the other ankle was roped neatly to the bedpost.

She'd brought him up here, tied him down like a sacrificial victim, and then cut his clothes off with great care and a queer sort of neatness. Not a scratch on him. After that,she'd pounced on him.

"Oh, Josh," she breathed. "This just...brings it _all _back. I've missed you." She leaned down, breathing against the hollow of his neck. He could smell perfume on her but couldn't identify it. His tongue was dry and his mind was racing, seemingly in circles. Sociopaths were damned hard to figure out anyway, and he'd never been able to figure out Alice that well.

"Look," he said, struggling to maintain his calm. "Alice, I don't know...what you think you're going to do to me, but...,"

She leaned in close and pressed her lips to his nose. "Silly boy," she said. "I'll give you three _guesses _what I plan to do to you. You had a hint. It won't hurt."

His mind spun. What was he supposed to do now? Well, it was obvious what she wanted from him. Was there a way out? He flinched as she bent down to kiss him. Her face quirked.

"Josh," she said thinly, "if you keep doing this you'll upset me, and when I get upset I have the tendency to do something nasty, which you know I'm capable of doing."

"Alice," he said quickly, and swallowed. What were you supposed to say to a psycho who had fallen in love with you? Clarice might know. Then the idea occurred to him that Clarice might've helped her somehow.

"What?" Alice said, and seemed interested.

"You're...you don't understand. I--," his voice seemed choked. Things seemed pretty grim. Clarice was somewhere down below, and there were plenty of hostages.

"What don't I understand?" Alice asked, sounding quite reasonable.

"You...you can't do this," he said, his mind still reeling. "You've got to...to understand, you can't keep this up forever."

"Yes, I can," Alice said promptly. "Well, for as long as I need to. I don't know if I'm going to hang out _forever _with Teek, but for long enough. Allow me to remind you, Josh. _We _brought _you _here. You didn't catch us." She smiled brightly, as if all this mayhem and destruction had been great fun. Which, it occurred to him, it had been. "Things have been _great _since I got out. I've been feeling better than ever before. Higher and higher, Josh, it's never been like this. You being here is...the icing on the cake."

Uh-oh. Off her meds and royally jazzed. This wasn't a good thing. She pressed herself down on him and smiled.

Possibilities ran through his mind. None seemed good. He didn't know what to do next. The gravity of his situation was not lost on him. If he got her angry, God only knew what she might do. The lives of innocent people might rely on what he did, and that wasn't lost on him either.

Still, maybe he could buy some time.

"Alice?" he asked.

"What, honey?" she asked coquettishly.

"Did Clarice...did Agent Starling ever...help you break out?"

Alice stopped. "She took me to the funeral," she said, as if confused. "Why? Who cares about Reesey? I promise you she's just fine. She's in her dressing room. I'll get her some Pringles when we're done. She likes Pringles, you know."

He swallowed. He didn't think Clarice liked Pringles at all, but somehow Alice had gotten that idea. The crazed image of Clarice bound in a chair while Alice rammed salty chips down her gullet by the tennis-ball-canful arose in his mind and he had to blink to force it away. "Well...yes, but...did she ever help you escape beyond that? Or give you information?"

Alice blinked at him for a moment, clearly puzzled. "No," she said slowly. "Reesey didn't help me escape. Not willingly. She just took me to the funeral, that's all. Reesey has been chasing me just like you have. But now _I _got _you _and I don't want to talk about Reesey any more. It's you and me time now."

"Have you talked to your father since you got out?" he persisted.

Her face darkened. "_Joooosh, _I do _not _want to be thinking about my father right now. You gotta create the mood."

"Just answer the question...and...don't hurt anyone," Josh said slowly. "If you agree to do that...I'll...," he sighed. "I'll try."

"No. Haven't seen hide nor hair of the man," she said petulantly. "There. Are you satisfied?"

He sighed. He didn't want to be this monster's plaything, but he couldn't think his way out of this. She frightened him. She'd captured him so easily whenever she chose. His brain was a sodden lump in his skull. No answers came from the back of his mind, the way they had so many times before.

"You know I would never hurt you, Josh," she said indulgently. "Now just relax, okay? I've been waiting for this." He felt her hand snake between their bodies and tensed. Alice chuckled and sang merrily.

"And that's just one small fraction....of the _maaiiiin _attraction....you need a friendly hand...and I need action..."

...

Pressure. The pressure weighed down heavily on her.

Everything had been most hunky-dory up until now. They'd made a movie, sent it on, moved on. She'd had the chance to show her creative vision. Alice and Colin had been compliant with her needs. It was necessary! She had to create her art, and for that she needed them. She had been the leader, but she had been a fair and just leader.

Now it was all coming apart. All of it, just because of those fucking FBI agents.

Chatiqua had known that they would pursue from the moment she set Alice free. She'd manipulated them like pieces on a chessboard. Of course they would pursue. But it had been Alice's idea to put them in the next movie. Once they'd gotten them there, Alice had stopped thinking like an actress. She didn't seem to care about Chatiqua's vision any more. All she cared about was the demands of her loins.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit," Chatiqua muttered under her breath. She pounded her coffee-colored fist against the wall. She sat down with the digital camcorder. None of these scenes were usable. Not a goddam one. Before, they'd gotten everything in one take, sometimes two. Before, everything had been just great. Now, the FBI agents had ruined everything.

She didn't see what it was Alice saw in Josh Graham. He wasn't very tall or muscular. Alice had said he was smart. He might've been, but Chatiqua was smarter. He had taken direction fairly well, Chatiqua had to give him that.

_Get ahold of yourself, girl. In a few hours, Graham and Starling will be dead. Alice will go back to helping with your vision again. You let her scratch her itch, and everything will be cool. _

How could Alice betray her like this? They'd been friends for years. Now some FBI guy came along and Alice was oozing for him. Everything she had built was at risk now. _Everything! _

She had to kill them. If Colin was too freaked out to do it, she'd do it herself.

Colin was another matter. She had known for a while that he was getting to like Alice. To an extent, that was okay. Actors who liked each other had better screen chemistry. And Alice and Colin had screen chemistry in spades. The 'Hot Hot Hot' video would be one for the history books. Film schools of the future would show that, in a time to come when her work would be recognized for its brilliance.

But if he liked Alice too much, then they might not listen to her anymore. They might want to go off and do their own thing. How could they? How _dare _they? Her vision came over everything. She'd risked her life and limb for it.

_Nothing has happened, girl. Simmer down. Alice is upstairs with him...and she'll get over it. She'll understand. My vision is what matters. My vision is **all **that matters. _

She could feel it pressing in on her. Pressure. Pressure. Everything slipping out of her grasp, the fine gears and rotors of the machine she had built to do her work falling into disrepair. She heard a creak from upstairs and barely swallowed the shriek.

Chatiqua Miller put her hands to her face and drew in a sharp, shuddering breath through her nostrils. She let it out slowly. _Kill them and it will be okay. _It was a soothing thought, like a mantra. She repeated it to herself, hoping to gain back her inner peace. _Kill them and it will be okay. _

_Kill them and it will be okay. _

_..._

Pressure. The pressure weighed down heavily on him.

The pressure was of two origins. Heart and head, the oldest in the human condition.

Head was by far the easier of the two to look at rationally. By its nature, his heart was hard to examine critically. His rational concerns were far easier to enumerate and examine.

Chatiqua wanted to kill the FBI agents. Colin could understand that, but he believed it was a mistake. Right now, they weren't really that high on the FBI's list of priorities. There were two agents after them. It was a pain in the ass, but it hadn't gotten in their way. They'd been able to get away with a _lot_, all things considered.

If they killed the FBI agents, though, things would be a lot different. They'd move up on the FBI's scale of bad guys to catch. Instead of two agents, there would be many more. Twenty, thirty, forty, maybe a hundred. He didn't know.

The point was, capturing the FBI agents had been a mistake to begin with. Killing them would only compound that mistake. Colin didn't see any other way out of it, though. A few ideas sprang into his head – tie them up and leave them somewhere, knock them out, or something – and all died weak deaths like small fish flopping on a bank. If the FBI agents were let go, they'd come after them with double force. The woman seemed like the type who would be death on wheels if she was humiliated the way she had been. Colin didn't want to be around her when the handcuffs came off.

That thought led irretrievably to his heart. The male FBI agent. Graham. Josh Graham. Special Agent Joshua Fucking Graham.

Alice had fascinated him from when they had first met. Colin wasn't terribly experienced with women; he never had been. Most women didn't seem interested in him after realizing what he was. Once he'd gone to prison, he'd taken another step down on the desirability scale, even though the only thing he'd actually been caught for was the felony B&E. The other things he had done remained undetected.

He didn't think he _loved _her. All that had been a crock of shit to him. The world had a lot more pain in it than it did love; such he had learned as a small boy bouncing from foster home to foster home. But he liked her, sure. She was the only woman other than Chatiqua who knew what he was and accepted him. Chatiqua was too bossy for him to ever consider her that way. And Alice was prettier and had a better body, in his opinion.

So once Josh Graham came into the picture, Alice ran off to screw herself silly with him and Colin was just so much chopped liver. It was disappointing. He knew he didn't have any reason to get angry. Alice wasn't his girlfriend. They hadn't ever tried to do anything. But dammit, he didn't like it.

Heart and head colliding. His head said not to kill the FBI agents. He still didn't want to kill the woman; she seemed cute and Alice had asked that she be spared when they'd gotten her out. But Josh Graham was a much different story. Colin's hands flexed, imagining the sheer brutal satisfaction that snapping his neck would bring. He touched the heavy pistol at his side and imagined Graham sniveling beyond the sights for a heartbeat before a bullet spread his brains on the wall. Colin could close his eyes and see it easily; he knew what brains looked like when you shot someone in the head.

Why did she like him anyway? He was this short little guy, prissily neat. Colin was taller and better built. Josh Graham reminded him of the chess-club or math club types in school, the sort who wore sweaters and clutched their books to their chest. He was shy and didn't strike Colin as the type who would even go into the FBI.

Colin left the weird little house that they'd found. Some rich guy had built it like a hundred years ago. Chatiqua had found it and decided it would make a perfect movie set. It was open to the public now, like a museum, and it hadn't been too hard to plug the curator and take it over.

They were in Indiana now. Were they ever going to make it to California? And what were they going to do there? They had to keep moving if they wanted to keep from getting caught.

He wasn't sure what to do anymore.

The night air was cool, even though the day had been warm. Colin heaved a sigh and wondered what would come next. Would he do what Chatiqua wanted? Usually he did. It was easier to give her what she wanted than it was to fight her. And killing Graham would be very pleasurable indeed.

The snap of a stick interrupted his reverie, and he drew his pistol. A shape coalesced out of the darkness, approaching the house. A faint _snick _came on the night air. Down by the body he could recognize the curve of a blade deploying. Not FBI, there'd be more of them and they'd have had machine guns.

Colin aimed his pistol at the figure, still twenty feet away. Center of mass, just like the cops did. The figure stopped and seemed to examine him.

"Don't even _think _about it," Colin said calmly.


	18. Reunion

Dr. Hannibal Lecter took a step forward and viewed the young man in front of him. His position was not promising. He had his Harpy, of course. The young man had a gun, and it was aimed at him. There were those who thought the doctor foolhardy, and he would admit to having a taste for braggodocio. He'd moved from Florence back to the United States and set up shop in Maryland, virtually under the FBI's nose. Yet when guns were involved, he knew the value of caution.

He examined the young man calmly. Colin Barksdale. Chatiqua's second-in-command, no doubt. Perhaps there was a way he could convince the young man to put down the gun. After all, persuasion was a specialty of his.

"Don't even _think _about it," the young man said.

Dr. Lecter nodded. "Mr. Barksdale. I trust you realize I am not with law enforcement."

The young man's lips tightened. "I don't care who you are," he said sharply.

Dr. Lecter took a step forward, so that Colin could see him. "I trust, also, that you realize who I am."

The muzzle trembled ever so slightly. "You're Alice's father. The cannibal."

"Indeed. I mean you no harm, Mr. Barksdale; as far as I'm concerned, we're birds of a feather. The movies are a bit on the puerile side, but that's not your fault. Perhaps we could cooperate. I want my daughter, Mr. Barksdale. There's no need for violence between us. May I ask, where is she?"

Colin's lips tightened again. "In the house," he said tonelessly. "Upstairs. With...with...,"

Dr. Lecter did not need an engraved invitation to tell him who his daughter was with, or what that might mean. From the young man's reaction, he saw that Colin was not happy about it, either. Dr. Lecter made a moue of distaste and nodded.

"Agent Graham," he said flatly.

Colin nodded.

"And Agent Starling? Is she here?"

Colin nodded again. "She's locked in her dressing room."

"Is she harmed?" Dr. Lecter asked with interest.

Colin shook his head.

"And my daughter...is she, shall we say, excitable?"

Colin sighed. "She's...bouncing off the walls. She likes...well...,"

"She enjoys the company of Joshua Graham. But she's manic. Very well." Dr. Lecter took a step closer. "Mr. Barksdale, surely you must realize the hopelessness of the situation Ms. Miller has put you in."

Colin eyed him carefully and looked puzzled. "Hopelessness?"

"Indeed." Dr. Lecter could be very convincing when he wanted to be, and this young man did have some promise, after all. It would be a shame to see his career cut short. He made his voice reasonable and friendly, an uncle giving his murderous nephew kindly advice. "I've read the FBI's files on you. You're far from unintelligent. Consider. You have kidnapped two FBI agents, and, if my guess is right, required them to play a humiliating role in your movie."

Slowly, unwillingly, Colin nodded and lowered the muzzle of the pistol just a fraction.

"And in so doing, Mr. Barksdale, you've put yourself into a position from which there is no return. I assure you, humiliate the FBI and they _will _make you pay. Up until now, there have been only two agents assigned to this case. If you kill them, your case will become the FBI's top priority. Hundreds, if not thousands, and agents will be assigned to bring you down. If you release them, the same thing will happen. Mr. Barksdale, Chatiqua Miller's career has taken a fatal turn. Her flamboyance is ill-advised. In order to show such effrontery to a law-enforcement situation, you must have already thought through their moves and developed an effective counter. Both you and I know that she has not. She has not thought out what her next move will be; she doesn't understand that kidnapping the FBI agents changed _everything." _

He sidled a step closer and saw exactly what he wanted in Colin's eyes: slow, dawning realization. Perhaps the man had already thought of that. That would workin his favor.

"So what do you suggest?" Colin asked. "You're on the lam yourself, doctor. And it's the Big Bitch for you if they ever catch you. Didn't you kill police officers?"

Dr. Lecter shrugged. "Correctional officers, actually," he said breezily. It was a small truth that would cost him nothing to give. It was true that if he were apprehended, the death penalty would be on the table. "Mr. Barksdale, I have a proven track record, as it were. I have evaded the long arm of the law for years. Decades, even. I could offer you help."

"Nothing is free," Colin observed. "What would you want?"

Dr. Lecter smiled and nodded. Yes, he did like this young man. He was somewhat uncouth, but it was always possible to polish up manners. And in a case such as this, there was something to be said for getting straight to the point.

"I'll make you a proposal," Dr. Lecter said mildly. "I wish to take my daughter into my custody. Possibly Clarice Starling as well. I could use a young pair of arms and a strong back to help me." His eyes gleamed. "In return, Mr. Barksdale, I shall offer you good value for your assistance. I'll take you with me. I can help you establish alternate identities, and I can help you find a home in South America. I'll include a reasonable sum of cash to get you started. The alternative is to be captured and incarcerated along with Ms. Miller. It's up to you."

Colin considered the proposal, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful. He was close, Dr. Lecter thought. He would add the final _coup de grace _now, to tip the balance.

"As well, Mr. Barksdale," he said mildly, "my daughter will be with me, in South America. She'll be far from Agent Graham, and eventually she'll...move on. You could be there for that, you know. I can't promise you anything except the chance...but it's more than you'll have in a federal prison."

Colin opened his mouth and closed it. He opened it again and exhaled. Finally he swallowed. Dr. Lecter could see his Adam's apple bob up and down. The effect was not lovely.

"How do I know you'll hold up your end of the bargain?" he asked.

Dr. Lecter thought that a good sign, all things considered. He understood the young man's point. He was asking for the young man's assistance now; all his obligations would be filled later.

"I don't know what you've heard of me, Colin, but I never lie," he said calmly. "A sign of good faith? Sure, why not. May I put my hand in my coat pocket? I assure you I have no pistol."

Colin nodded slowly.

Dr. Lecter put his hand in his pocket and extracted a sheaf of bills held together with a money clip. He riffled it with his thumb, crouched down, and tossed it underhand towards the young man. Nice and slow, to look unthreatening. As he had said, it was a sign of good faith, nothing more. The money landed in front of Colin's feet, the money clip twinkling in the faint light.

"Five thousand dollars, Mr. Barksdale. And that money clip is worth something as well. You ask for a sign of good faith? There it is. You could shoot me and run out the door with that money. In fact, you could make it to Chile on that money alone, in fairly high style, with little to no risk of apprehension. Do you know how to accomplish that goal? I do."

Colin took a step forward and eyed the money clip as if suspecting a trap.

"Take it," Dr. Lecter invited, and smiled openly. "A sign of good faith. An advance on your salary. Call it what you will. Mr. Barksdale, I have nothing against you. I am not a law enforcement officer and have no need to arrest you. We are fellows, are we not? You've served Ms. Miller, and you've taken it as far as you can. Join me, help me accomplish this, and everything you want can be yours. Security, safety, wealth,...._and_ a chance to win my daughter's heart." He spread his hands. "It's up to you."

Colin bit his lip and let out a shuddering breath. He lowered his pistol to the ground.

"Even Clarice Starling will tell you I never lie," Dr. Lecter added. "And I assure you, she doesn't think highly of me."

Colin Barksdale stood and thought hard for a long moment, his brow furrowed. He examined the doctor wordlessly, studying him for signs of treachery. Dr. Lecter waited a moment more, wondering if he would have to fight the young man after all. Finally, the young man sighed and reholstered his pistol.

"All right," he said finally.

* * *

Everything was just _great _now.

Alice lay in bed, next to Josh, peaceful and contented. She'd forgotten how much fun he could be. Really, it made her think twice about this whole Teek thing. Teek was her friend, yes, but she was getting _awfully _bossy and when she didn't get her way she got nasty and Josh was just so cute and she just wanted to pounce on him in bed except she'd already done that, hadn't she?

The voice of one of her shrinks in the asylum occurred to her: _Alice, when you are in a manic phase you show evidence of disordered thinking. That's part of what causes your violence. That's why you need to take your medication. _And she supposed it was: she felt great! She wanted to dance! Sing! Stab someone! Well, actually, it would be more fun to go back to fun with Josh. Everything was just great now. She had Joshie and Clarice was neatly stashed downstairs, and Alice supposed Reesey didn't like her costume, but then nobody _always _got everything she wanted, and it wasn't like a lab coat and pantyhose would _kill _Reesey, and after all this time she was in the bed next to Josh and he was warm and fun to lie next to and everything was all great now.

She watched him tremble for a moment. What was he afraid of? She would never hurt him.

"You look cold," Alice decided. "Is something wrong?"

Josh narrowed his eyes at her. "No," he said coolly. "Nothing at all."

Why was he being distant? That hurt, more than she would admit. She knew what would make him happy. Standing up from the bed, she grabbed her shorts and slipped them back on.

"I know what would make you feel better, Josh," she said coquettishly. "Coffee! There's a nice pot downstairs."

Without ado, she grabbed up her fishnets and slipped her feet into the maryjanes that were part of her costume. They clacked on the floor, and for a moment or two she was distracted by that. _Clickclackclickclackclickclack. _ What fun!

"Be back in a jiff," she said perkily, and rounded the corner only to stop dead.

Colin stood in the hallway, hulking moodily. The look on his face was tense. That was tough; Colin was nice and all, but Josh was the one she had always wanted. But behind him...

Behind Colin stood a shorter man in a dark topcoat and a dark fedora. Below its brim, dark eyes reflected the light in red points, much as her own did. The face hidden in shadow was also much like her own: delicately sculpured features, gleaming white teeth, and lips that seemed shockingly red against pale skin.

The man observed her calmly for a beat, saying nothing.

"You," Alice breathed.

"Yes." Dr. Hannibal Lecter glided forward, his topcoat smoothly sliding around his legs. "Come here, Alice." He tilted his head and observed his progeny. "What is that ridiculous outfit you're wearing?"

"It's my costume," Alice responded automatically. Surprise, shock, and warmth spread through her in equal measure. A goofy smile slipped over her features.

"Foolish. Never mind, I have more conservative clothing in the car. Come, Alice. We must leave this place."

"You came for me," she said.

"Yes." Dr. Lecter stepped forward again, graceful as a dancer. His arm came up, fluid and quicksilver quick against the blocky heaviness of his new henchman. In it, the slender barrel of a syringe gleamed. He slipped the needle into Alice's arm. The needle itself was fine enough that Alice neither felt it nor bled when it was withdrawn.

"What was that?" she asked, realizing an instant too late what had just happened.

Dr. Lecter smiled coolly. "I can't have your swinging-on-the-chandelier antics getting in the way," he said. "Fear not. Nothing that would harm you. Just something to calm you a bit."

For a few moments, father and daughter stared at each other. Alice felt her head grow woozy. She put a hand to her forehead and stumbled with sudden lightheadedness. A hand grasped her arm; she wasn't sure whose it was. She heard his voice, speaking calmly to her, guiding her downstairs.

Dimly it occurred to her that she should have gotten Josh coffee. Also, Teek was out there somewhere. What was she going to think of this? And what about Reesey? Surely she wouldn't be too happy about it either. Or would she be?

As the sedative took hold, Alice discovered it didn't matter.


	19. Decisions

_I've got to get out of here. _

That thought was the only thing Josh Graham had to hold onto. As if three violent psychotics weren't bad enough, Dr. Hannibal Lecter had decided to pay a visit.

Josh Graham had lived with the shadow of the dark psychiatrist all his life. He had seen his father lying in a bed, tubes running out of him, clinging desperately to a life that Dr. Lecter had tried to take away from him. He had felt the sharp edge of a glass shard that a killer sent by Dr. Lecter had pressed to his throat. He had seen his father slowly sicken over the years, poisoned by the fear of the cannibal. He had seen his father stabbed once again by Dr. Lecter, in Alice's home in Baltimore. He had seen the torment inflicted on Clarice by the daughter Hannibal Lecter had given to the world.

But fear, like any emotion, can be harnessed. He grabbed the bedpost with his free hand. The positioning was terrible and he had no leverage. He'd barely passed the physical part of FBI training: his interests ran more to books and mindhunting.

_Think. Think, dammit. If Dr. Lecter and Alice get ahold of Clarice...God only knows what they'll do to her. _

He tested his bonds. The handcuffs were standard issue; if he didn't have a key he'd have to pick them. Breaking them wasn't an option; he'd do better to gnaw off his own hand at the wrist. A frustrated glance over at the nightstand revealed nothing he could use.

_What about the bedpost? _

It _felt _reasonably solid, but there might be some give. Was it oak? Pine? He didn't know anyway; he'd never been much of a woodcrafter. Could he break it? That was the question.

He grabbed the bedpost with his free hand and tried to move his bound hand to get some leverage. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and stung his eyes. The shackle dug painfully into his wrist. He grinned on the pain, baring his teeth into the darkness.

_God, let this break and I promise I'll spend more time at the gym. _

He grabbed with both hands and pulled. At first, nothing. The post seemed to be made of solid rock. Was he even doing this right? He couldn't see; his damned forehead was in the way. His muscles strained. His handcuffed wrist was going numb. His pulse pounded in his forehead.

Sweat made his hands slip. He swore, wiped his free hand, and tried again. This time, he was rewarded with the _creeeeeaaaaak _of wood under strain. The thought of what would happen when Alice came back drove him. He was panting, already feeling his arms begin to tire; he didn't work out enough and his muscles were screaming at the unaccustomed endurance.

Still, he tried again. He was well anchored, at least. For a moment he was insanely, bitterly jealous of the high school football stars with pecs of steel. His felt like tortured rubber right now.

He strained against it, feeling his handcuffed hand fall away, useless and numb. There was the _creeeeeaaaaakkkk _again, louder, stronger. _Just a little bit more...c'mon, God, gimme a break here..._

_SNAP. _The wooden ball atop the bedpost splintered off and was in his free hand . Josh had to work the handcuff over the bedpost with his free hand. His ankle was still tied to the bed, and he attacked the knot fiercely. Alice knew her knots, that was for sure.

He glanced over, sweat slipping down into his eyes, and saw a knife sitting on the bedside table. Just what every serial killer needed. He felt sort of stupid for not noticing it before. Now he grabbed it and deployed the blade. The blade was serrated – looked like a Spyderco of some kind, for sure. It made short work of his ankle rope.

His pants lay in a lonely knot on the floor. He grabbed them up and put them on. Keys, wallet, phone, everythingall there. Reaching for the holster on his belt only earned him a handful of empty air. Nervously, he slammed the dresser drawers open and shut, searching for his weapon. He didn't want to go up against Alice and her buddies with only a knife.

Luck was with him; his pistol was in the third drawer down. Checking the chamber revealed he was ready to lock and load. Now it was time to hunt the monsters down.

* * *

Clarice Starling leaned her head back against the chair and tried to think of what to do next. She'd been left here for a few hours. The chair was good heavy oak, and she couldn't budge it. Until she could get out of the chair, she couldn't do much of anything. 

Where was Josh? Probably upstairs being molested by Alice, if she knew anything about the unsteady woman. Poor Josh. She almost wished Colin was back around. She could've gotten somewhere by digging at him about his jealousy.

Colin had tied her handcuffs to the chair and looped the rope under it. The knots were under her ass where she couldn't get at them. Dammit. And she had utterly no idea where her gun was.

_I do not want to die in this ridiculous costume, _she thought helplessly. But what was she supposed to do? She was trussed up like a Christmas turkey. There had to be something; that thought kept nagging at the back of her mind like a mosquito. But no ideas would come from her whirling brain. She felt full of nervous energy, twitchy and trapped, like a car in neutral with its gas pedal nailed to the floor.

Her mind slipped back to the thoughts of people she'd arrested. Some were old hands at it. Usually a first-time arrestee would seem downright terrified, unused to the discomfort of restraint and loss of control. She'd usually dealt with them professionally: _do what I tell you and you'll be fine. _Now, she understood how they felt on a much deeper level than she ever had before.

_Think. Think. There is something here, some way to get out of this...you just have to figure out what it is. _

The door clicked. Clarice turned her head and tensed, her hands flexing. Someone was coming. It opened slowly, creaking just a bit.

Colin entered the room, looking businesslike and calm. Having heard his prior discussion with Teek, Clarice tensed again and struggled for some way to fight him while tied to the chair. Alice came in after him, surprisingly subdued. She wore her spangly shorts and top, but her fishnets were tossed nonchalantly over her shoulder. She was barefoot. She gave Clarice a wide, loopy smile and stumbled. Clarice saw who the third figure was and stared.

She had been expecting Chatiqua Miller, the violent sociopath who fancied herself an artist. Instead, the figure was not terribly tall, imperially slim, and dressed in an immaculate suit and camel's hair overcoat. His pale coloring and dark hair were the same as Alice's.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

"Good evening, Clarice," he said politely.

Clarice eyed him warily, all too aware of her own vulnerability and the fact that she was the only person in the room who wasn't a serial killer. Her eyes shifted to each one in turn: Colin, Alice, Dr. Lecter.

"Good evening," she said abruptly.

"I must say," Dr. Lecter added. "You look quite fetching."

Colin turned and looked at Dr. Lecter. "We can't just let her go, you know," he said softly. "She's FBI."

Dr. Lecter turned and looked at him as if annoyed, tweezing one of his pant creases back to razor sharpness.

"Mr. Barksdale, I understand your concerns," he said neutrally, "but this is my decision to make, not yours."

Clarice blinked for a moment, making the connection. Dr. Lecter...in _charge? _It seemed impossible. But there it was, in front of her eyes.

"Clarice," Dr. Lecter said courteously. "I have an offer to make to you. I am going to take my daughter into my custody. She will trouble you no further, I promise you that. I shall ensure that her...exuberance does not trouble anyone. Mr. Barksdale is going to come along with me, with appropriate remuneration for his assistance." He eyed her with some distaste. Obviously a man like him wouldn't approve of Alice's spangly costume.

"However," Dr. Lecter went on, "during your captivity in my daughter's hands, we spoke. Do you not remember?"

She had some trouble remembering, truth be told; she'd been dizzy and weak and starved then. She watched him carefully, noting that he wasn't going for a knife or anything. "I remember some of it," she hedged.

"Think about what it is you truly want," Dr. Lecter said. "You're not happy in life; anyone can see that. I can offer you more."

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" she said sharply.

Dr. Lecter shrugged. "Come with me," he said. "We can arrange for Ms. Miller's apprehension and the credit may go to young Mr. Graham. The other two of the Homicidal Productions crew will be far from American borders. There's nothing for you here but more labor, more spirit-breaking disappointment. Surely you've done your duty by the lambs by any reasonable standard."

Clarice stared. "Live? With you? With her?" There was simply no way she could ever live under the same roof as Alice. Was he crazy? What about her job? What about her duty?

"Yes," Dr. Lecter said. "Well, perhaps Alice may require supervision for a bit. We'll make arrangements."

She stared blankly from Alice, who simply smiled silently, to Colin, who seemed nervous, to Dr. Lecter who was simply watching her, waiting for a response. His face was implacable. He sure seemed to think what he was saying was possible.

"Excuse me," a new voice said. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

Chatiqua Miller stood in the doorway, her face hard and angry. In her fist was a large pistol. _.45, _Clarice thought. _Maybe a nine millimeter. Decent size gun. _

"Ms. Miller," Dr. Lecter said politely. "Nice of you to join us."

Chatiqua's face twitched. She stared with barely concealed anger at each person in turn. Clarice bit her lip nervously; Dr. Lecter had remembered the social niceties but neglected to free her from her restraints. With Chatiqua Miller waving a pistol around, that was bad. Very bad. _Overcontrolled personality, _Clarice thought. _If she realizes that everything has fallen apart, it's gonna get ugly. If Barksdale goes back to her side...shit, no matter what, it's going to get ugly. _

"Shoot him, Colin," Chatiqua demanded.

Tension weighed down heavy on her as she watched Colin Barksdale. Her chains clinked as she shifted, trying even in her restraints to get some kind of tactical advantage. The blocky young man swallowed and looked from Dr. Lecter to Chatiqua and back, clearly weighing his advantages. Which sociopath to follow?

Slowly, Colin looked down, shook his head, and cleared his throat.

"It's...it's over, Teek," he said in a low and strangled voice.

Chatiqua's nostrils flared. Her coffee-with-cream features twisted in rage. She took a step back and looked at her enemies: rival, hunters, betrayer. The pistol trembled in her fist and the muzzle shifted.

"Okay," Chatiqua said. "Now..._one _of you is going to die."


End file.
